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RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE 



IN 



MONEY. 



riy' By GEORGE WILLIAMS. 



TOLEDO, OHIO: 

BLADE PRINTING & PAPER COMPANY, 
1876 



M3 






Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1876, by 

GsoRGE Williams, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. CL 



PREFACE. 



THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 



This book was written to announce and 
maintain the principle that money Is entirely 
a public thino^, chosen by society and made 
and legalized by government as an authorita- 
tive standard of value and medium of ex- 
change in the affairs of the government and 
people. That the custom of society and law 
of government make it necessary for the 
individual members of society to procure and 
use it in their business affairs and to pay 
taxes and public revenues. And hence that 
every member of society and subject of the 
government has a right to meet money in 
business, in exchange for property, services, 
or labor ; subject to the choice of the holders 
to make the exchange, and also subject to the 
competition that other people's property, ser- 



IV. 



nces, or labor may offer for it ; but not sub- 
ject to any right in the holders to make gain 
out of it, while they refuse to make such ex- 
change, nor while by notes and promises to pay 
money they hold it bound to return to them- 
selves, excepting only the money invested in 
the bonds and promises to pay of the United 
States Government. That it is the duty of 
the government to protect these common 
rights in the money by sufficient penalties 
and confiscations of property and money in- 
volved in violating them in any form, espe- 
cially in the form that is generally known as 
lending money for interest, or in exchanging 
it for private promise to pay money. 

It is not the intention to give a scientific 
treatise on money, but to illustrate the com- 
mon rights in it, and note and refute the 
sophisms of lending money for interest as 
they come up in the mind from the pages of 
fourty-four years of business experience, or 
as they are suggested by current events. 
There will be copious quotations from the 
works of learned authors and from lectures 
and newspaper articles to show the tendency 



V. 



and direction of the learning of the world on 
the subject of money, with such comments on 
the same as may help to let the truth appear 
over all. It will be the especial effort to 
make every chapter and article as near as 
possible a complete argument in itself against 
lending money for interest. 

GEORGE WILLIAMS. 
Northwood^ Columbus^ Ohio, 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter I. 
What Money is and what it is for. — The Right to 

every Member of Society - - - - g 

Chapter II. 
Why Lending Money for Interest is Wrong - 14 

Chapter III. 
Circulation of Money ----- 19 

Chapter IV. 
Standard of Value and Medium of Exchange - 23 

Chapter V. 
Property Rent and Interest - - - - 36 

Chapter VI. 
Time c-f Money ---.•- 41 

Chapter VII. 
Capital and Labor ----.. 46 

Chapter VIII, 
Finance --------53 

Chapter IX. 
Interchangeable Greenback Currency - - 60 

Chapter X, 
Inflation --------66 



Chapter XI. 
Montesquieu on Money-Lending • - • 82 

Chapter XII. 
Banking and Clearing-House System - - 91 

Chapter XIIL 
Defending Money-Lending - - - - 107 

Chapter XIV. 
Immoral Effects of Money-Lending •> - m 

Chapter XV. 
What the People Must Do - - - - 116 

Chapter XVL 
Conclusion — Political Parties — If Arbitrary Distinc- 
tions in Society are Wrong - « - 15^ 



THE 

RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY 



CHAPTER I. 



The bankers and money-lenders are rapidly 
breaking up the business of the country, are 
taking the property from the mass of the peo- 
ple, and are reducing them to a condition of 
hopeless poverty and degradation. To un- 
derstand the power for evil that the bankers 
and money-lenders are exercising over the 
mass of the people by means of the money, 
it is necessary to revert to first principles and 
consider 

WHAT MONEY IS AND WHAT IT IS FOR. 

Money is a sign of value, and a medium of 
exchanging value, adopted by custom in the 
transaction of business, and legalized by gov- 
ernment, and made a final end or test of value 



10 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY, 

that labor and property, and other things of 
vakie, shall be referred to and valued by. The 
affairs of civilized society and government re- 
quire the presence of a universal sign or rep- 
resentative of value, that real values shall be 
made to end or terminate in. 

The ending of all value in money, is effect- 
ed by custom and law, making a constant 
necessity for labor and property, to be con- 
verted into money to pay taxes and public 
revenues, and also business balances, at the 
option of creditors. This constant exchange 
of labor and property for money is necessary 
in the affairs both of the government and of 
the people, in securing and maintaining an 
interchangeable relation between money and 
labor and property. In a primitive state of 
society, 

THE ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF MONEY 

could onl}' be secured by making it of gold 
and silver. These metals are but little sub- 
ject to waste by rust, and as they exist in 
limited supply, it is supposed to cost as much 
in labor to procure them, as it would to pro- 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY, 11 

cure the things that they are the price of 
But whatever money may be made of, the con- 
trolling powers above enumerated must be 
organized In it by custom or law, or by both. 
These essential and controlling powers in 
money, afford the opportunity for the holders 
of it to inflict upon all the rest of the people 
the most terrible oppression and abject servi- 
tude, if they are not restrained by the power 
that makes the money. As is now seen, cus- 
tom and law lay a necessity upon the people, 
to determine and end all value in money, and 
this requires of them to constantly procure 
and use money ; a thing impossible for them 
to do, unless they can get it in exchange for 
labor and property. Now, the bankers and 
money-lenders, having gotten the money in 
exchange for labor and property, refuse to let 
other people get it in that way, but hold it 
until the need resting upon the people to pay 
business balances and public revenues, will 
compel them to borrow the money on prom- 
ises for Its return to the lenders with increase. 
The light of common reason, as well as sore 
experience, clearly shows that it is not possi- 



12 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

ble for the people to fulfill the conditions 
made for them now, by the joint action of 
the government and the bankers and money- 
lenders, and that the bankers and money- 
lenders will continue, as they are doing now, 
to break up the business of the country, and 
take the property from the mass of the people, 
until they take all the property, and reduce 
all the laborers to a condition of abject pov- 
erty and servitude ; or until the government, 
the money-making power, restrains the evil 
business of money lending. 

As the individual members of society are 
placed under the necessity to procure and use 
money, by a regulation of society and govern- 
ment, to the intent that they shall be compel- 
led to constantly exchange labor and property 
for money, and thereby establish and maintain 
an interchangeable relation between money 
and labor and property for the benefit of 
society and government, there results 

THE RIGHT TO EVERY MEMBER OF SOCIETY 

to meet money in worldly affairs In exchange 
for labor and property, subject to the choice 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 13 

of the holders of the money to make the ex- 
change, and also subject to the competition 
that other peoples labor or property may- 
offer for it; but not subject to any right in the 
holders to make gain, while they refuse to 
exchange it for labor or property, nor while 
by notes and promises to pay money, they 
hold it bound to be returned to themselves. 

The right to meet money in w^orldly affairs 
to be exchanged for labor and property with- 
out any right for holders to make gain while 
they hold it back from such exchange, is as 
important to the individual as his right to 
liberty ; for it is evident that his liberty and 
his condition will depend upon this right in 
money. 

Their right in money is the test of their 
right in property, and in their own labor. 
Their right in money involves all the impor- 
tant points of the conflict between freedom 
and slavery, with greater ease and less res- 
ponsibility resting on the money-lender, than 
rested on the slave-master. 



14 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 



CHAPTER II. 



WHY LENDING MONEY FOR INTEREST IS 
WRONG. 

It may be seen from common reason that 
no person has a right to take from another 
more than he gives, unless he accepts it as a 
gift of friendship, or acknowledges it as a 
gift of charity. If he takes increase, that is, 
more than he gives, in any other way, it is 
clear that he is an oppressor, a thief, or a 
robber. The nature of the crime is deter- 
mined by the circumstances connected with 
the taking. If the need of others is taken 
advantage of as a means to extort increase, 
it is oppression, or robbery, depending upon 
the circumstances of the case. If the increase 
is taken through deception it is theft. By 
whatever means taking from others more than 
is given is effected, unless it is accepted as a 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 15 

gift of friendship or a charity, it is an offense 
against justice and right. The custom of 
society and the law uniting to make money a 
necessity to the people in their worldly affairs, 
while they are prevented by the same author- 
ity from producing it, presents an opportunity 
that is never or rarely offered to the holders 
of any other thing, for the holders of money 
to take from others more than they give. The 
act of holding money to lend for interest, is 
an offense against the rights of all the people 
in money ; while taking more in other matters 
than is given, very rarely, if it ever, effects any 
but those from whom it is taken. Takinor 
usury or increase on what is given in other 
things, marks the individual as an oppressor, 
and people will avoid him ; for they are not 
compelled to deal with him, as they are with 
one who stops the money from circulating in 
exchange for labor and property. The wrong 
will not only be limited in extent, but the per- 
petrator will be punished by neglect and loss 
of business, and will be checked in the evil 
practice. Taking increase on any other thing 
cannot be compared with lending money for 



16 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

interest, nor can either of them be compared 
to making gain in business 

GAIN IN BUSINESS 

is no evidence that increase is taken, or that 
more is taken than is given. To illustrate the 
proposition, we will take the example of a 
merchant, who prepares a storehouse and fills 
it with goods, to sell to his neighbors. If he 
faithfully consults the good of his customers, 
he can scarcely avoid giving them more than 
they give him in profits ; as they would learn 
by experience, if they were forced to get 
along without the office, or function of the 
merchant, being filled for them. If he takes 
more from them in profits than he gives them 
in goods and in the services that he renders 
them, they will soon quit his store. It would 
be a rare situation in business, where people 
would be compelled to deal with a merchant 
who took more in profits than an equivalent 
for his recurring outlay, and for the goods 
and services that he gave to his customers. 
What is true of a merchant in this respect, is 
true of every other honest and faithful person 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 17 

in business. If they are true and faithful, 
they give more than they take. If they pur- 
posely take more than they give, they, too, are 
usurers. To give a clear example of a busi- 
ness person giving more than he takes, let the 
intelligent and careful publisher of a news, 
paper be instanced. Consider the important 
fund of useful information that is given in a 
carefully prepared weekly newspaper, for 
three or four cents per week, and it will be 
seen that it is quite possible for business peo- 
ple to give more than they receive, and still 
make gain. The money-lenders alone, from 
the nature of their business, must be charge- 
able with taking more than they give, and 
they stand condemned by the Word of God, 
and by the sore experience of untold millions, 
as the oppressors of their kind. That the 
borrower frequently makes more than the in- 
terest upon the money borrowed, is no refu- 
tation of the charge that the money-lender 
takes more than he gives. It merely shows 
that the borrower has either unwittingly or 
purposely become a participant in oppressing 
the rest of the people. For the interest or 

2 



18 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

increase is not in the money borrowed, nor in 
the services of the lender ; and if it is taken^ 
it must be taken from other people. Increase 
means more than, or above the thing increas- 
ed ; and when a person takes back all that he 
gave, and something more than or above what 
he gave, the circumstances of the case deter- 
mine whether he is a recipient of a gift of 
friendship or of charity, or whether he is a 
usurer. To give in friendship is often the 
only way the giver can do the good that he 
wants to do ; but there is no doubt that the 
giver, when he bestows the gift upon a worthy 
person, reaps the highest reward of the two 
in satisfaction. True people in business try 
to give more than they receive, and are blessed 
with a blessing that the takers of increase 
cannot receive, or comprehend. While these 
truths may be seen through common reason^ 
we quote the sure foundation for them from the 
Word of God : " Take thou no usury of him 
or increase ; but fear thy God, that thy brother 
may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him 
thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy vic- 
tuals for increase." — Liviticus, xxv,, 36, 37. 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY, 19 



CHAPTER III. 



CIRCULATION OF MONEY. 

The circulation of money is often spoken 
of, and people pass along the remarks that are 
made on the subject in conversation, without 
noticing what the words do, or what they ought 
to, import. For instance, it is customary to 
hear the act ot borrowing money to pay a 
debt, or taxes, or to buy produce, or other 
things as circulating money ; without consid- 
ering that the larger part of the operation 
consists in taking the money back to the 
lender, with the required additions in the form 
of interest ; ahhough there may be, and gen- 
erally is, but a few days between the different 
parts of the transaction. And without con- 
sidering the fact that the interest paid, to- 
gether with the evident immunity from com- 
petition in business that the money-lender 



20 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

enjoys, may at the time be causing people to 
take money out of business, to be used in 
lending for interest, instead of continuing to 
circulate it in business. Now, suppose that 
the average timxe of loans of money to busi- 
ness people is sixty days, it is evident that 
after the money is once out, instead of cir- 
culating, the operation is a constant contrac- 
tion of circulation. The business has been 
in operation long enough now, to afford a 
view of the other side. Let us go into the 
counting-rooms of the borrowers, and see 
what is going on there. Look at that careful 
man bending to the inspection of his business, 
to see where he may hope to draw out money, 
for the sixty days are passed, and he has only 
the days of grace left. After long hesita- 
tion, and with deep concern mingled with pain, 
he now makes drafts upon customers, that he 
knows ought not to be drawn. He is con- 
scious that in precipitating these drafts upon 
these careful business men, his customers, it 
will inevitably disturb the business relations ; 
but it must be done ; the money must be re- 
turned to the lender, with the interest. The 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 21 

drafts are made and sent. We will now take 
a look Into the counting-rooms of the men to 
whom the drafts have just been presented. 
They go now to the work of examining ac- 
counts ; they find their business standing fair, 
but working close. There appears to be no 
margin of money. They accept and pay the 
drafts ; but take a hint, also, that business is 
working too close ; and they determine to 
contract the borders of their operations. 
These contractions effect others, and vibrate 
through business, till every branch is touched 
by them. So business goes on ; the borrow- 
ing continues up to its old volume, but each 
evening the circulation is less by the sum of 
the interest of that day, than it was in the 
morning. The people are novv^ conscious that 
money is becoming very scarce in their affairs, 
and they become more careful in parting with 
it. The motions of money become much 
slower in consequence, and the same am.ount 
of money does inuch less business ; while the 
amount in business is actually becoming less 
day by day, and its motions continue to get 
slower in a corresponding ratio. Any person 



22 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

can recognize the picture as the true likeness 
of the existing condition cf the country; and 
they can also see at a glance that the picture, 
like the condition, gives no hope of anything 
better, so long as business runs in existing 
channels. They can certainly see, also, that 
borrowing money on promises to return it to 
the lender with increase, does not circulate 
money, but the reverse ; and that the only 
way to circulate money is to give it out in ex- 
change for labor and property. The more a7id 
oftener that money is bo7'rowed and returned to 
the lenders with interest, the faster it contracts 
the circulation ; and in aii eqttal degree prac- 
tically changes the ptirpose of mo7iey,fro7n that 
of supporti7ig the business of the gove7^n7ne7it, 
and all the people, to that of supportifig the 
mo7iey-le7iders 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 23 



CHAPTER IV 



STANDARD OF VALUE AND MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE. 

In a work entitled " Money and the Mechan- 
ism of Exchange," by W. Stanley Jevons, M. 
A., F. R, S., Professor of Logic and Political 
Economy in the Owens College, Manchester, 
and published by D. Appleton & Co., 549 and 
551 Broadway, New York, there is much in- 
formation given on subjects connected with 
merchandising in money. Also, a broad, 
rickety foundation for the business of lending 
money for interest. We quote here from the 
book, that part which appears to be offered 
as a foundation for money-lending, with the 
explanatory connections, as found in the first 
and second sections of the third chapter. 

" We have seen that three inconveniences 
attach to the practice of simple barter ; name- 
ly, the improbability of coincidence between 



24 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

persons wanting and persons possessing; the 
complexity of exchanges, which are not made 
in terms of one single substance ; and the 
need of some means of dividing and distrib- 
uting valuable articles. Money remedies these 
inconveniences, and thereby performs two dis- 
tinct functions of high importance, acting as 

(i) A medium of exchange. 

(2) A common measure of value. 

In its first form money is simply any com- 
modity esteemed by all persons, any article of 
food, clothing, or ornament which any person 
will readily receive, and which, therefore, every 
person desires to have by him in greater or 
less quantities, in order that he may have the 
means of procuring the necessaries of life at 
any time. Although many commodities may 
be capable of performing this function of a 
medium, more or less perfectly, some one ar- 
ticle will usually be selected, as money par 
excellence, by custom or the force of circum- 
stances. This article will then begin to be 
used as a measure of value. Being accus- 
tomed to exchange things frequently for sums 
of money, people learn the value of other ar- 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN xMONEY. 25 

tides in terms of money, so that all exchanges 
will most readily be calculated and adjusted 
by comparison of the money values of the 
things exchanged." 

By the foregoing the public need of money 
as a measure of value, and medium oi ex- 
changing value, is well shown. The author 
appears to have a peculiar taste in this in- 
stance for putting his horse to the hind end 
of the cart, and making money a medium of 
exchanging value, before people have learned 
its use as a measure of value. He says that 
after money has been adopted, " by custom or 
force of circumstances, as a medium of ex- 
chaneinof value, this article will then begin to 
be used as a measure of value." And he 
adds, " being accustomed to exchange things 
frequently for sums of money, people learn 
the value of other articles in terms of money, 
so that all exchanges will most readily be cal- 
culated and adjusted, by com.parison of the 
money values of the things exchanged." 

It would appear from the last sentence that 
the author did not like the look of things 
while the horse was at the wrong end of the 



26 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

cart, and people were exchanging values in 
money, before they had learned its use as a 
measure of value, and he concluded to take 
the horse away altogether. 

Now it appears to be his meaning that the 
people use money as a medium of exchanging 
value, before they learn the value of it ; but 
being selected, by the use of it, as a medium 
of exchanging value, this article will then 
begin to be used as a measure of value. 

Having learned the value of things by the 
money measure, people cease to use money 
as a medium of exchanging value, and most 
readily adjust all exchanges by comparison of 
the money values of the things exchanged. 

That looks like an improvement. The horse 
had better be away. But now he puts the 
horse back again, and again to the hind end 
of the cart ; for he says : " A third function 
of money soon develops itself Commerce 
cannot advance far, before people begin to 
borrow and lend, and debts of various origin 
are contracted. It is in some cases usual, in- 
deed, to restore the very same article which 
was borrowed, and in almost every case it 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 27 

would be possible to pay back in the same 
kind of commodity. If corn be borrowed, 
corn might be paid back, with interest, in corn ; 
but the lender will often not wish to have 
things returned to him at an uncertain time, 
when he does not much need them, or when 
their value is unreasonably low. A borrower, 
too, may need several different kinds of arti- 
cles, which he is not likely to obtain from one 
person, hence arises the convenience of bor- 
rowing and lending in one generally recogniz- 
ed commodity, of which the value varies little. 
Every person making a contract by which he 
will receive something at a future day, will 
prefer to secure the receipt of a commodity 
likely to be as valuable then as now. This 
commodity will usually be the current m.oney, 
and it will thus come to perform the function 
of a standard of value. We must not suppose 
that the substance serving as a standard of 
value is really invariable in value, but merely 
that it is chosen as that measure by which the 
value of future payments is to be regulated. 
Bearing in mind that value is only the ratio 
of quantities exchanged, it is certain that no 



28 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

substance permanently bears exactly the same 
value relatively to another commodity ; but it 
will, of course, be desirable to select as the 
standard of value, that which appears likely 
to continue to exchange for many other com- 
modities in nearly unchanged ratios." 

From the position the professor gained 
under the head of a medium of exchange and 
a common measure of value established by 
custom, or the force of circumstances, he finds 
people v/ill begin to borrow and lend, and that 
" every person making a contract by which he 
will receive something at a future time, v/ill 
prefer to secure the receipt of a commodity 
likely to be as valuable then as now. This 
commodity will usually be the current money, 
and it will thus come to perform the function 
of a standard of value." 

A measure of value, when it is adopted by 
sufficient authority, becomes a standard of 
value. Pie had the measure of value estab- 
lished by the strongest known authority, that 
is, by custom or the force of circumstances ; 
but he does not find it to be a standard of 
value till people begin to lend it to be paid 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 29 

back In kind. When money is loaned, to be 
paid back in kind, the act values money at a 
future time, as compared with itself at the 
present time. A value set for a future time, 
of course, would be in the nature of a guess, 
but as there is in lending money always an 
advance in the value of money over its value 
at the present time, and as an advance in the 
value of money makes a decline in the things 
that mxoney measures the value of, it must be 
admitted that there is great propriety in the 
guesses, for they make their own fulfillment 
sure. The Professor might, with great pro- 
priety, have said that thus It came to perform 
the function of a measure of value; a dishon- 
est measure, always expanding to take unjust 
gains. But he could with no propriety say 
that thus It performs the functions of a stand- 
ard of value ; for those who use it always 
change values by It. He will hardly claim 
that it Is the function of a standard to make 
changes against others, at the will and for the 
gain of the interested parties who use It. 

Falsity is the garb of evil, and a writer des- 
cribing and tolerating an evil, will be sure to 



30 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

clothe it in falsity, if he makes his language 
consistent with his work. Professor Jevons 
was writing a book on money. In the work 
he came to the point at which evil desires 
prompt men to take advantage of others, by 
taking money out of its function in business,, 
and holding it to lend for interest, an evil 
that in its every act injures the public rights in 
money. If he had had any (the least) of the 
reformer in the constitution of his mind, he 
would have seen the evil. But he is no re- 
former ; he appears to be entirely satisfied, 
and if advance is to be made, he will look for 
it in the straight line of existing conditions. 
He saw no evil in money-lending. But he 
was compelled to recognize and account for it 
in his work ; he did this, and he gave it the 
most comely dress that it was capable of wear- 
ing. It is the greatest evil extant in worldly 
affairs ; and he clothed and surrounded it with 
falsity and rags. The only thing remarkable 
Is that he should be so entirely unconscious 
of what he was doing. 

We will now look over the ground for our- 
selves. We will suppose that in the early 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 31 

Stages of the question of selecting and adopt- 
ing money, two men meet in business ; one oi 
them has gold, and the other has corn ; and 
they want to make an exchange of a part ot 
their commodities. They will not exchange 
by even weights, or even bulks. It is evident, 
that they must fix a value for one of the com-^ 
modities by bulk or by weight, and then ascer- 
tain the quantity of the other that will agree 
with the value fixed for that one. They 
know that corn can be increased indefinitely,, 
and that it is very perishable ; it will not,, 
therefore, be suitable for a measure of value. 
But gold is limited in supply, and is very 
little subject to change ; and for these reasons. 
it is very suitable for a measure of value. 

They value gold by weight, therefore, and 
then determine what the corn is worth by 
the gold measure. That being done they are 
ready to make the exchange, using the fixed 
value of gold as the measure of value, and 
gold itself at its fixed value as the medium of 
exchange. They have now erected gold into 
a measure of value and a medium of exchange, 
and they show the convenience of it to others ; 



O'^ RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

and they adopt it also. When it has become 
customary to value things by the gold measure 
and exchange values in gold, they go to 
government, and it adopts it, and by law 
makes it the only legal sign of value, and legal 
tender. 

Thus it becomes a standard of value, and a 
standard medium of exchange. 

By custom and by \si\N all are now compelled 
to procure money to pay business balances 
and taxes, or they can hold no property or do 
no business. Certain sharp ones now see the 
grand opporticjiity and they exchange their 
property for money, and refuse thereafter to 
do business that will require paying out the 
money. Soon the need of the money that 
they extracted from business channels presses 
heavily upon other people, and they go to the 
holders of the money, not to borrow it, for 
they know that those who " go borrowing go 
sorrowing ;" but they go to exchange services 
or property for the money. 

Oh, no ! the holders of the money do not 
want labor or property ; but they will lend it 
on condition that it will be paid back to them 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 33 

With more money. And now, In the palliating^ 
not to say deceptive, words of Prof. Jevons, 
" Commerce cannot advance far before people 
begin to borrow and lend, and debts of various 
origin are contracted." The statement of the 
condition carries positive proof on its face, 
that the people cannot perform the tasks that 
the money-lenders force upon them by taking 
the money out of business and holding it to 
lend. In the nature of things, money-lending, 
if it Is allowed to become general, will subject 
all business and labor to itself Many things 
may exist that may help to hold a sort of de- 
pressed life in business. As, for instance, large 
collections of taxes and revenues, to be dis- 
bursed among the people, in pensions, annui- 
ties and salaries. While this governmental 
control of large sums of money may make it 
possible for business among the people to re- 
tain some vitality, it is a slavish life for the 
masses of the people, and they cannot help 
but sink deeper and deeper into poverty and 
degradation. 

There is a view of the effects of the control 
of the money of the country as interest-bear- 



34 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

ing capital, that all are interested in keeping 
before them, and especially the laboring and 
producing millions. That is, that an interest 
or inducement that acts to restrain the ex- 
change of money for labor or property, the 
product of labor, is borne and paid by those 
who labor and produce property ; and it is 
paid on every dollar's worth of business that 
springs from and is connected with labor and 
property. If the interest is one per cent, the 
producers pay it on all the business operations 
that are measured by money, and not merely 
on the actual money borrowed in transacting 
the business ; and they pay as much additional 
as the condition produces restraint upon the 
exchange of money for labor and property. 
Thus the one per cent, to-day reduces the 
prices of the product of labor by that amount. 
But after the reduction is established the one 
per cent, acts with as much force for another 
reduction of one per cent. 

This goes on, step after step, and in time 
creates such distrust of values of labor and 
property, that money will not be exchanged 
for them on any reasonable or measurable 



RIGHTS OF TFE PEOPLE IN MONEY, 35 

terms. From these plain principles it can be 
seen how utterly the present rates of interest 
are grinding the producers, and how foolish 
or wicked those politicians are who want the 
government to Issue money that would be in- 
terchangeable at the will of the holders into 
United States bonds, bearing interest at the 
rate of three and sIxty-fiYe one-hundredths 
per cent. These politicians would not add 
straws to the already over-loaded camel's 
back, but mill-stones. 



36 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 



CHAPTER V. 



PROPERTY RENT AND INTEREST. 

It is not necessary to draw a parallel be- 
tween rent of property and interest on money 
for those who will give the subject a little 
thought, but as there are some who do not 
take the trouble to examine it, but blindly de- 
fend money-lending, we will illustrate the dif- 
ference by an example of a man who rents a 
farm. 

When a man rents a farm, he pays for what 
he receives of the store laid up in the farm, 
and which he does not return. The amount 
he pays is not determined by the money in- 
vested in the farm. In other words, the rent 
is not calculated on what the farm cost the 
owner in money, but is fixed by the produc- 
tiveness of farms of its kind. If the owner 
asks more than the other party can reasonably 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 37 

draw out of the farm, he will not take it. 
Farms are property made by the people. 
They are neither limited as money is, nor are 
the people compelled to take those already 
improved, but may improve others until the 
supply brings the demands for rent to reason- 
able terms. Money, on the other hand, is not 
made by the people, but is a creation of soci- 
ety and law, and the law comipels all to use it, 
or own no property and do no business. It 
can only be gotten by the people in exchange 
for labor or property ; but when the holders 
refuse to part with it for labor or property, 
people are compelled to borrow it. When 
they have paid it back, they have returned all 
they received, and if they pay interest they 
return more than they received, which is usury, 
and is forbidden by the Word of God. As it 
is prohibited by the Word of God, it might 
be concluded at once, from that alone, that it 
is violative of the principles of justice among 
men. If a person takes more rent for a farm 
than would represent the portion that reason- 
ably would be taken from the store laid up 
therein, he also would be taking usury ; he 



38 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

would be taking without giving, and would be 
a usurer. But society and government would 
not be participants with him In the evil, as 
they had not prevented the renter from mak- 
ing a farm for himself, and had not made the 
farm an unavoidable necessity to him. Soci- 
ety and government prevent people from mak- 
ing money, and, at the same time, place a ne- 
cessity upon all the people to procure and use 
it. Thus they become participants In oppres- 
sing Individual members of society, if they 
allow people to make gain by charging Inter- 
est for the use of money. The difference be- 
tween taking Interest for money and making 
gain by handling property, may be illustrated 
further by people taking rent for houses. A 
house for people to live In represents a store 
of uses and service performed for those who 
live in the house. The store consists of many 
things, namely, the building and grounds, the 
main parts of which It Is supposed, the renter 
returns when he leaves the house; and the 
wear and tear of the house from time and 
usage; the time and expense of the owner, in 
looking after the property, and keeping it in 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 39 

repair ; and taxes and insurance. All of the 
items but the main portions of the house and 
grounds are used by the renter and kept, and 
the rent that he pays is for what he keeps, 
and not for the things he returns, There may 
be as much disposition in the ov/ner of a house 
to take increase on the things returned, as 
there is to make gain by taking interest on 
money, but the opportunity is rarely afforded ; 
and when it is done, it effects none but the 
individuals concerned in the transaction. If 
the holders of money are allowed to make 
gain by charging interest for the use of it, 
they will cease to part with it for services and 
property ; and w^ill, as they are doing now, 
subject all people to themselves, and take the 
labor and property for the use of the money, 
and while they degrade all others to vassal- 
age, they will own both the money and prop- 
erty. It is therefore the duty of society and 
government to follow up with confiscation, all 
acts of taking interest or increase on private 
promises to pay money ; for it« is the sum of 
all oppressions among men, and it is made 
possible, and edge is given to it, by the laws 



40 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

of government. That Is, by government 
making money of limited material, or limiting 
the amount that may be made ; and making it 
the gnly legal sign of value, and legal tender. 
As farms are made of parts of the earth s 
surface, by authority of the laws of govern- 
ment, while "the earth is the Lord's," and made 
for all his children, it is doubtless right for 
society and government to be careful how the 
earth's surface is apportioned out. The move- 
ment against granting large tracts of it to 
corporations is in the right direction, but 
there might be further advance made in the 
same direction with propriety, and in time 
doubtless must be. But under the diversified 
order of productive employments existing in 
civilized society, it may be a long time before 
a farm or a piece of the earth s surface to cul- 
tivate, will become an imperative necessity to 
any individual. Whereas the law makes 
money an imperative necessity to all of the 
people, therefore, the protection of the right 
that every individual has in money, is the 
present need of society, and is the most im- 
perative duty that government could perform. 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 41 



CHAPTER VL 



TIME OF MONEY. 

It IS seen In business affairs that there are 
stoppages In the circulation of money from 
various causes. It Is claimed that If the 
money Is deposited In bank, that the banker 
can safely lend It Into the active business 
affairs of the country, In quantities agreeing 
with the average stoppage of the money. 

The stoppage of money In business while 
the sums to be moved are being collected, and 
other circumstances attendant on Its move-^ 
ments are being prepared, Is wholesome ; and 
it works no inconvenience but what has a very 
good effect in business affairs. Depositing 
the money for safe keeping, if the owner 
thinks it best to do so, would be orderly; but 
it cannot be loaned by the banker without In- 
troJucinor manv disorders. First, It offers an. 



42 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY 

€asy way of supplying what, at the time, 
might be only a temporary deficiency of 
money in the business of the borrower; and 
turns the attention from the necessity of taking 
up the dropped stitch that caused the deficien- 
cy, and hurries the business to the fatal " nine 
deficiencies." Second, it incites to efforts to 
climb into fortunes through speculations, 
rather than through the slow, regular steps of 
productive industry. Turning money more 
and more out of regular productive business, 
inflicts continually increasing difficulties upon 
those engaged in such business ; and gives a 
general horror of regular business as the 
fountain of trouble. Finally, over the wild 
waste that money-lending works in productive 
business, it is made manifest to all that money 
is the one commanding and desirable thing of 
the world ; and the effort to get money out of 
b;^isiness and property, becomes the ruling 
motive amono- men. Evervthino- useful is lost 
sight of in the effort to abstain from employ- 
ing money; and saving money is the one es- 
sential business of life. Lending money for 
gain is a wrong inflicted upon society ; and 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 43 

saving the time of money is only a false 
thought to excuse the wrong. It has been 
said that lending money turns the money from 
productive business. This results from the 
things adduced, and also from the fact that all 
of the movements of money require time to 
prepare for them ; consequently there is a 
large consumption of the time of money in 
preparing return movements to the money- 
lenders. This m.ovement is in a direction 
from business, and unlike a movement in the 
direction of business, it projects no life, but 
the reverse, through business channels, while 
the money is being collected. When the 
movement back to the lender is effected, the 
money is out of business to remain so, until a 
borrower takes it and starts it on a new course. 
But this, v/hen it takes place, leaves ail of the 
brerd^s that were made in business connections 
by collecting the money out of business to 
return it to the lender. The waste of the 
time of money in preparing and making the 
return movement to the lenders, and the in- 
crease of money that it takes out of circula- 
tion as interest above what it puts into circu- 



44 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

lation, together with the breaks that such 
movements make and leave in estabhshed 
business relations, all disturb and discourage 
productive business, and cause money to be 
taken out of such business. The time of 
money belongs to the business in which it is 
engaged, including the time required to col- 
lect the sums, and the necessary stoppage 
while its movements are being prepared. If, 
in the meantime, the money is put into any 
other business, events prove, that the money 
ceases to belong to the first business, and that 
it does belong to the last. If the last busi- 
ness is banking and money-lending, the money 
belongs to that business, and does not, and 
cannot, belong to productive business. The 
merchant, when he takes his money to a bank- 
er to be loaned, lays the foundation for a busi- 
ness that will surely overthrow all regular pro- 
ductive employments. Every business has a 
right to direct the ir.ovements of the money 
that is engaged in it. If lending money for 
gain is right, then the money must obey the 
will of the lenders, and must seek such em- 
ployment as can be hurried through its move- 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 45 

ments. This, we know, takes place when 
bankers lend the money that is deposited with 
them. The money leaves the slow-moving, 
productive employments, and seeks such 
speculations as may be consistent with fre- 
quent returns of the money to the lenders. 

The necessities of the people will induce 
them to try to do business, and through in- 
creasing troubles they will borrow money for 
business and to pay taxes. But day by day 
they feel more acutely how abject and galling 
the yoke is, that the practice of money-lending 
places upon productive employments. 



46 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 



CHAPTER VII. 



CAPITAL AND LABOR. 

A solution of the purpose and true use of 
money, will settle the question between capi- 
tal and labor. This question has puzzled 
political economists for ages ; and the more 
that has been said or written upon the sub- 
ject, the further from solution it appears to be. 
Without stopping to consider the shades of 
meaning in the term capital, that appear to be 
the sources of confusion, as to the relation 
that exists properly between capital and labor, 
I will define the word by a feature of its 
meaning, by which all will recognize it ; that 
is, accumulation. The man has accumulation 
of powers of body and mind greater than the 
boy, and in this he has more capital than the 
boy. The man uses his powers in performing 
the various functions that devolve upon him 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 4T 

as a man, and he acquires more p6wer and 
skill of body and mind, and also rewards of 
his usefulness in worldly things. Now he has 
more capital and of different kinds. It is 
very evident that in such accumulation or 
capital, there can be no possible conflict with 
any person else in the whole universe, unless. 
the accumulations are used in a wrone direc- 

o 

tion, and for a wrong purpose. If accumula- 
tions are used in a direction that comes in 
conflict with other men's rights, it is the best 
evidence in the world of a wrong use of cap- 
ital ; and society must not clip and form other 
men's interest to the capital, but must teach 
the true direction and use of capital, ana clip- 
the capital when it runs in a wrong direction. 
In the worldly affairs of men, it is necessary 
to have money, as a means of representing 
and exchanging values in a condensed and 
easily-handled form, and as a medium of con-^ 
tributing support to the government. To fit 
the money for the purpose, it must be made 
under authority of government ; must be in. 
limited, and as nearly as possible, in uniform 
supply ; and there must exist between human 



48 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

services and property (the things to be valued), 
and money, an interchangeable relation. These 
necessary qualities of money are secured by 
making it of gold and silver, or limiting it to 
a gold and silver basis, and by making it the 
only legal sign of value and legal-tender in 
payment of private and public dues. The 
character and function of money require its 
circulation in all business affairs, and also that 
the people shall procure it to pay their busi- 
ness balances and taxes. As the people are 
not allowed to produce money, it is evident 
they must get it of others, in business. At 
this point there is a possibility that those who 
hav? accumulations, that is, capital, will use it 
in a way that will Inflict great injustice upon 
all other people. Money being necessary to 
all, and existing in limited supply, by turning 
their accumulations of property into money, 
they have In their hands the means of con- 
trolling the labor and property of all other 
people. If they now refuse to let the money 
circulate In exchange for labor and property, 
they raise a conflict In the business affairs of 
the world. Their accumulation of knowledge 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 49 

and skill may find exercise in blinding the 
people as to where the evil lies, and to point 
out relations between capital and labor, that 
will harmonize with their handlinof of their 
accumulations. The plain and easy mode of 
harmony was by enslaving labor, but this has 
a harsh sound in the present age ; and now 
they try it through what they call the rights 
of capital. They falsely apply the truth that 
there should be no conflict between capital 
and labor, to the evil handling they make of 
their accumulations ; though they are making 
the system of business among men unsound 
and corrupt from head to foot ; the head pam- 
pered vice, and the body squalor and corrupt- 
ing servility ; yet they get the sanction of 
statesmen and learned writers on political 
economy, or, at least, are not rebuked by them. 
The condition of society, that is resulting 
from the evil handling of capital in banking 
and money-lending In civilized countries, is 
¥/ell described by Cardinal Manning, in a re- 
cent sermon, in which he refers to pauperism 
in England. He says : " England, the rich- 
est of all countries, has upon it a stain and a 
4 



50 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

shame, not to be found in countries which 
Engh'shmen assume to despise ; he meant 
pauperism, an intensely demoralized state of 
society. Poverty in itself was an honorable 
state ; but pauperism was something altogether 
distinct from poverty. Pauperism was that 
wrecked condition of men and of families, out 
of which there was no rising by any effort of 
their own. And what did it come from 1 It 
would take too long to endeavor to say. One 
reason he would state : the closeness of the 
hands and hearts, and the ignorance in which 
the rich lived and died, of the state of the 
poor, who lived and died round about their 
dwellings. The possession of wealth and 
prosperity generated a selfishness and uncon- 
sciousness of the sufferings of others, so that 
men were wrapped up in their own daily indul- 
gence, and were forgetful of those who were 
in want." 

Cardinal Manning describes a condition 
that cannot fail to grow out of the manner in 
which the few are controlling the money in 
banking and money-lending. Its direct and 
inevitable effect is to produce a state of 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 51 

wrecked, demoralized pauperism, that the 
mass of the people cannot possibly avoid 
falling into, much less, being in it, can raise 
themselves out of it. He describes the con- 
dition of both rich and poor, and leaves it to 
be inferred that the rich ought to help the 
poor; but he leaves the cause of the condi- 
tion untold, unless we are to understand that 
it is because the rich do not help the poor. 
If the Cardinal intended to lay the cause to 
the neglect of the rich to give material sup- 
port to the poor, it would be in harmony with 
an error of the Catholic church. It has un- 
doubtedly been an error of that church to 
collect largely from the people, and then give 
support to the indigent, without sufficiently 
considering whether much of the indigence 
was not induced by the too heavy collection. 
The right rule for church, state, or individual, 
is first of all to be sure that you do not " lay 
grievous burthens upon men's shoulders," and 
when you give, be very sure that what you 
give has not been obtained by wrong and op- 
pression ; when all observe the rule of un- 
offending right, it will be found that people of 



52 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

sound body and mind, will prefer to support 
themselves, and the number of the receivers 
of alms will be wonderfully lessened. Then 
such a condition as the Cardinal describes, 
both as to the rich and poor, would necessari- 
ly be greatly reduced, both in volume and vir- 
ulence. 

Why the Cardinal did not point out partic- 
ularly the cause of the condition that he des- 
cribed, cannot be known. The occasion could 
not fail to be as appropriate to explain the 
cause, as to refer to the condition. We know 
that the money-lenders, by forcing people to 
abstain from business, and from the use of 
property, unless they will borrow money of 
them, are bringing about, for the laboring and 
business classes, the condition that is describ- 
ed by the Cardinal. Money-lending cannot 
fail to force the producing classes continually 
deeper and deeper into vv^ant and degradation. 
The business literally takes people by the 
throat, and says to them, " serve me." 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 53 



CHAPTER VIII. 



FINANCE. 

The term finance, as connected v/ith State 
affairs, and which, no doubt, is the connection 
that it was formerly most properly used in, 
signifies the money and revenues of the State. 
As connected with the science of political 
economy, it includes the proper mode of rais- 
ing and handling the State money or reven- 
ues. The term, as it is applied in the United 
States, signifies money in general, or in gov- 
ernmental affairs, and also in individual affairs. 
There appears to be nothing in the term itself 
that would vary its signification when applied 
to individual affairs, from what it would be 
when applied to State affairs. In the partic- 
ular as well as general application, it means 
the settlement, payment, or end ; or it means 
money, the thing by which the end is reached, 
and settlement and payment made. The gov- 



54 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

ernment ordains that money shall be the set- 
tlement of, or payment of, or end of, all civil 
affairs ; hence money means finance or end, 
and finance means money or end, whether in 
private or in State affairs ; and the g'etting of 
money means the way to the end. Again, as 
getting money is the way to end things in 
money, getting money is Included in the term 
finance. The term finance, then, means the 
art and science of getting money, and paying 
or ending business affairs in money. 

Finance is the result of production and 
trade, and the science of production and trade 
is the science of finance. As finance means 
money, and includes getting money, and set- 
tlement and payment In civil affairs, while all 
these result from production and trade, it Is 
clear that finance results from production and 
trade ; hence the science of production and 
trade is the science of finance, and conse- 
quently that the mysteries of production and 
trade, are the much talked-of 

MYSTERIES OF FINANCE) 

no more and no less. It must be borne in 
mind that money is a sign or representative 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 55 

of value, adopted by society and legalized by 
government, to settle and finish civil affairs. 
It Is readily seen that the things to be settled, 
ended, or finished, grow out of doing, owning" 
and trade. That is, out of production and 
trade. Without production and trade, there 
would be no civil affairs to be settled, and 
consequently there would be no need of 
money, and no such thing as finance. FInancef 
then, rest upon production and trade, begins 
where they begin, and stops where they stop. 
Now we see that the mysteries of finance are 
the merest myth, unless we understand by the 
mysteries of finance, the mysteries of produc- 
tion and trade. An Individual to conduct suc- 
cessfully the affairs of a vegetable garden to 
supply a city market with wholesome and 
pleasant vegetables In their season, must mas- 
ter the mysteries of production and trade, in 
one of its most varied and intricate forms, 
with all of Its parts very highly organized and 
in active operation to vary results. Yet com- 
mon men do master the mysteries of this in- 
tricate specimen of the art and science of pro- 
duction and trade, and its resulting finance, 



66 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

with high success and pleasure ; unless their 
business Is blighted by unusual agencies over 
which they have no control. 

A merchant trading In foreign countries 
masters the mysteries of production and 
trade and resulting finance, though very many 
active forces conspire to make or modify the 
field to be occupied, and operated upon. If 
these men master the mysteries of production 
and trade and resulting finance, what Is the 
matter with statesmen, that they stand back 
with such awe before the word finance, which 
merely expresses the resultant effect of the 
active forces that others understand and har- 
monize ? What Is there In the w^ord ? A mere 
name. 

To understand this mysterious awe of states- 
men and politicians before the term money or 
finance, we must look further and more close- 
ly into the subject. We have seen that a 
common man will successfully carry on a veg- 
etable garden, and reach the end, finance, or 
money, that he had to keep In mind and work 
towards In the whole business ; though the 
operation Is a very complex one, and active 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 57 

forces of both physics and metaphysics oper-- 
ate upon all parts of his business to modify 
results. The man knows this fact in its g^n- 
eral action upon his business, and that he 
must bring his operations to harmonize in a 
great degree, with these active forces. If he 
fails in any particular, he will know why he 
fails, and will modify or change that particular 
part ; but will go on, and in the main succeed, 
unless, as said before, some unusual agency 
changes the conditions. If he fails in conse- 
quence of such unusual occurrence, the origin 
and nature of the occurrence may be a mys- 
tery to him. But if he fails without such un- 
usual cause of failure, he will understand why 
he failed, and can point out the cause, unless, 
he is lackinor the decree of intellisfence that 
was required in his business. 

What then, we ask again, is the matter with 
the statesmen and politicians, that they should 
stand awe-struck before what they call the 
mysteries of money or finance.? They know 
what money is, why money is, how it is made> 
and what it is for. Knowing all of these 
things, and every one of them, with the exact- 



S8 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

ness that belongs to written law, they ought to 
be able to point with unerring certainty to any 
wrong that might occur in connection with 
money or finance. Of all things that effect 
the interest of men, money has the least mys- 
tery about it. It is adopted to simplify the 
affairs of the people and government, and do 
uway with mystery. If money performs its 
function, it removes mystery from all business 
relations. If it does not perform its function, 
why does it not f Being a creature of society 
and government, its purpose and function 
ought to be well understood and defined, and 
when it fails, or results in evil, a remedy ought 
to be plainly and easily seen. As a starting- 
point in investigating financial matters, it must 
be constantly borne in mind that society and 
government not only introduce a convenience 
into the business of society and government, 
by making money and organizing in it the 
control of labor and property, but they do a 
great deal more. They lay a necessity upon 
every member of society to constantly pro- 
cure and use money in their worldly affairs. 
This affords an opportunity for the holders of 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 59 

money to retire it from business, and hold it 
to lend for interest ; and in that way take 
under their influence the entire business, prop- 
erty, and labor of the people, as their servants 
and for their gain. 

This they have done, and the evil is making 
society quake to the center, the world over ; 
while statesmen, with less wisdom than the 
cultivators of a vegetable garden, are awe- 
struck, and say " they do not understand the 
mysteries of finance." 



60 RIGHTS OF THL PEOPLE IN MONEY. 



CHAPTER IX. 



INTERCHANGEABLE GREENBACK CURRENCY. 

The movement in favor of issuing a cur- 
rency, interchangeable at the will of the 
holder, into United States interest-bearing 
bonds, doubtless finds support from a few per- 
sons who are honestly seeking a way to stop 
the business of the people on its course to 
utter destruction ; but that it originated with 
any who were making an honest effort to al- 
leviate the sufferings of the masses, and to 
perform for their fellow-beings and country 
an unselfish service, it is not possible to be- 
lieve, when we consider what the effect of 
such a system of currency would be. Ever 
since the money in common use in business, 
was elevated from the condition of what was 
known in 1836 and 1837 as " wild-cat money,'^ 
there has been a continually increasing prac- 
tice of taking money out of business and 
property, and holding it to lend for interest. 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 61 

This practice had progressed so far as to 
cause, In 1857, what Is known as the panic of 
that year In business. The stringency con- 
tinued to Increase at that time, but the war of 
the rebellion breaking out In 1861, the gov- 
ernment was compelled to make and Issue to 
the people, large sums of money in exchange 
for property and services. The money so 
Issued sustained business while It lasted, not- 
withstanding the exhausting process of bank- 
ing and money-lending. But when the war 
issues were over and exhausted, business 
began to reel and stagger, and Is now pros- 
trate ; while the money lies in the banks, and 
the process of transferring the property from 
the debtor to the creditor, as the producing 
and money-lending classes are respectively 
called, goes on. The prostrate condition of 
business Is the result of capturing the money, 
and holding It to lend. People sell property, 
and get money in exchange for it. They now 
refuse to let it continue to circulate in ex- 
change for labor and property, but part with 
it thereafter only on promises for Its return 
to them with additional money.. This places 



62 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

the productive classes under the necessity to 
borrow the money to supply the channels of 
business, Including the necessary stoppage of 
the money in the pockets of the people and 
in the public treasuries, while its movements 
are being prepared, and also return it with 
additional money to the lenders, at times set 
to suit their gain. If the conditions that are 
made for the producing classes by the busi- 
ness of banking and money-lending, and the 
requirements of bankers and money-lenders 
for their own safety and profit are borne in 
mind, we will be able to appreciate what the 
effect of issuing a currency interchangeable 
at the will of the holders, into United States 
interest-bearing bonds, would be, both upon 
the money-lending and producing classes. But 
to appreciate the full effect of such a measure, 
we must also bear in mind that the custom of 
society and the law of government, make 
money a constant necessity in business, as a 
medium of exchanging values and paying 
taxes ; and, as the people are not allowed to 
make money, they must exchange services and 
property for it Now, if the holders refuse to 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 63^ 

continue the circulation in that way, directly 
the business and producin^^ classes suffer for 
the money ; and not being able to get it in 
exchange for their products, they borrow it, 
and pay it back with increase. Day by day 
the process increases their difficulties, and 
piles up debt against their class, in favor of 
the banker and money-lenders. Business be- 
gins to fail, labor fails, poverty intensifies and 
spreads, and money accumulates in the banks. 
Politicians are now called upon, to solve the 
enigma of the times. This is the condition 
of affairs in the first centennial year of the 
nation's existence. 

One hundred years ago the Fathers of the 
Republic were called upon to resist the unjust 
demands of government, even through war 
with one of the most powerful nations upon 
the earth. They proved themselves equal to 
the requirements of the occasion. Their de- 
scendants, the statesmen of the present day, 
are asked to solve the enigma of production 
and business suffering for money ; while the 
money lies in banks, waiting safe interest- 
bearing promises to pay money. The ques- 



64 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

tlon is a very simple one, and involves nothing 
more profound than to enquire for what use 
money is made, and whether it is performing 
its use. If money is merchandise, made for 
the benefit of the money-lenders, and which 
they may use to break up the productive in- 
dustries of the people, and take their property 
from them, the solution would naturally be 
different from what it w^ould be if it was made 
fcr a medium of transactino- the business of 
the government and people ; while money- 
lending is a disease or parasite, growing upon 
the body politic. If the money is for the 
money-lenders, and the lav/s of the govern- 
ment, that make it necessary in business and 
to pay taxes, are merely means furnished them 
by the government 'to break up productive 
employments, and to take the property from 
the people, the hard money theories, by which 
the money may be reduced in volume, have, 
at least, some small degree of application to 
the purpose of money. But their application 
to the purpose is remote, weak, and indirect^ 
as compared to the plan of making the money 
interchangeable at the will of the holder, into 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 65 

United States interest-bearing bonds. Under 
this plan the money-holders would wipe out 
of existence, all the money that they could 
not use directly for their purpose, and would 
take the interest-bearing bonds of the gov- 
ernment instead. It relieves the money-hold- 
ers of all danger of cheap money, and at the 
same time gives them a large volume of gov- 
ernment bonds on which to draw interest, and 
if occasion suits, to again recover the money. 
It obviates all indirections that might grow 
out of the hard-money plan, in subjecting 
business and labor to the money-lenders. But 
if money is made to facilitate the transaction 
of business among the people, and as a just 
means in the hands of the government, to 
draw its support from the labor and property 
of the people, while its legal character and 
its limited volume are means to the end, and 
money-lending is a disease to be cured ; then 
are politicians failures on the money question, 
and the greenback politicians the worst of all. 
They are worse than failures; they are evil 
innovators. More will be said on this subject 
in another chapter. 



66 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY* 



CHAPTER X, 



INFLATION. 

According to a statement of the New York 
World, as accredited to it by the Wood 
County (Ohio) Sentinel, of the nth of May, 
1876, A. D. White, President of Cornell Uni- 
versity, read a paper before the Union League 
Club, in New York city, entitled "Paper Cur- 
rency Inflation in France — How it Began." It 
says : " The Club Theatre was filled with 
members, all of whom listened attentively to 
the strong, hard-money document, notwith- 
standing many of them were, or had previous- 
ly been, paper-money men." 

If the President made the statements re- 
ported, and made them the basis for conclu- 
sions in favor of hard money, as claimed for 
them in the report, it was a remarkable per- 
formance ; for the statements separately, as 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 67 

reported, do not support the conclusions 
claimed for them. And when put together, they 
are Insufficient to support conclusions in 
favor of hard money. " After reviewing 
briefly the events which occurred toward the 
end of 1789, which created the financial em- 
barrassments in France, and led to a new 
issue of paper currency, the lecturer said : 
Within a few months after the first issue, 
another Issue of $400,000,000 was made, mak- 
ing the total issue $800,000,000, but with a 
solemn pledge that the total amount put in 
circulation should not exceed $1,200,000,000. 
But very soon this pledge was violated, under 
the popular pressure, and $400,000,000 more 
were Issued, but with a solemn promise that 
the circulation should never exceed $1,400,- 
000,000. This, too, was violated, and the 
issues went on in a rapidly Increasing ratio. 
These issues gave a great stimulus, tempora- 
rily, to speculation, gambling, and stock-job- 
bing, throughout the country. There arose, 
and was rapidly developed, a great debtor 
class, partly of those who bought the national 
real estate, paying a small part down, and in- 



68 FIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

tending to pay the remainder in small install- 
ments ; partly from those speculators and 
gamblers in values, who had bought for a rise 
in nominal values. Commerce and manufac- 
tures, though at first stimulated, were soon par- 
alyzed, and finally almost universally destroy- 
ed. The mercantile interest, which supposed 
that it was aided by this inflation, since the 
prices of goods on the shelves of the mer- 
chants were raised, soon found that it was in- 
jured, no less than other interests, since the 
merchants had to attach to their goods prices 
not only to cover the increase in nominal 
value, but the risks from fluctuation ; the 
number of buyers diminished, and payments 
grew less certain. Inflation brought the 
worst evils of all upon the masses of the 
nation, upon the people of small fortunes, and 
upon the working class. The uncertainty in 
values having paralyzed manufactures, vast 
numbers of workmen throughout the nation 
were thrown out of employ, so that after 
prices were inflated 200 or 300 per cent., the 
wages of labor remained the same as before 
the inflation. At the great centers, a reckless 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 69 

gambling in values, which spread Into the 
country at large arose, which led men to look 
on steady labor and moderate gains with con- 
tempt. The idea of thrift was obliterated 
among the French people, though they are 
naturally one of the most thrifty of nations. 
Corruption of public men followed. Mira- 
beau, Chabot, Fabre D'Eglantine, and others, 
who, two or three years before, risked their 
lives from patriotic motives, had now become 
so involved in the speculating mania and lux- 
urious living, that Mirabeau received bribes 
from the Court, and others received bribes 
for their votes in the National Leo^islature. 
At last a franc in crold was worth 288 francs in 
paper. The measures of the Directory were 
then sketched together, with the issue of the 
"Territorial Mandats," which came to be as 
gold. These mandats were issued with every 
guarantee for their security, in the best of the 
national real estate, yet they depreciated to 
thirty and even to fifteen per cent, before they 
were issued from the press, and at last fell to 
live per cent. The collapse was then describ- 
ed, and the ruinous state in which France was 



70 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

left. After this vast amount of paper money, 
36,000,000,000 " assignats " and 2,400,000,000 
" mandats," had been repudiated, coin began 
to come in easily and naturally, and trade 
having been put on a solid basis, prosperity 
was gradually restored." 

The professor says — " these issues gave a 
great stimulus, temporarily, to speculation, 
gambling and stock-jobbing, throughout the 
country." The fact alone of largely increas- 
ing the volume of money, is no reason or ex- 
planation for speculation, gambling, or stock- 
jobbing. Nor has the volume of money, 
whether it be large or small, any tendency in 
itself to produce such results. If such things 
exist, it is not from or owing to the volume of 
money, nor is it owing to the material that 
money may be made of But it is owing to 
the use that is made of money ; and the use 
that is made of it depends upon the laws of 
the government regulating the creation, and 
use of money. It may be safely affirmied, as 
the President of the University appears to 
imply, that the handling of money in France 
would be very much like the handling of 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 71 

money in the United States, under the same 
or similar circumstances. To illustrate the 
fact that the volume of money, whether large 
or small, would not have in itself a tendency 
to beget '' speculation, gambling, and stock- 
jobbing," we will suppose that the government 
of the United States, being in need of money, 
determines to print and issue four hundred 
million dollars of paper money. The gov- 
ernment could not accomplish its purpose 
without a plan, and the plan would have to in- 
clude the makingj the issuing, and the circu- 
lation of the money. The circulation of a 
new issue of paper money, would spring from 
the fact that the government made It to be 
money, and thereby all private interests were 
formed Into forces, to propel the circulation. 
If the government gave the new issue the 
legal character of money, and proper legisla- 
tion prevented any private interest from 
springing up that would prevent the circula- 
tion, the money would, of necessity, enter into 
the function of measuring and exchanging 
values. In the business affairs of the govern- 
ment and people. The circulation of money 



72 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

is often a matter of necessity, even when the 
money is made of gold of the common stand- 
ard. It circulates because the government 
and society make it the sign and representa- 
tive of the value, that is in houses for people 
to live in, in clothes for them to wear, and in 
food for them to eat. It is altogether a reg- 
ulation of society and government that an 
ounce of gold shall represent so many dollars* 
worth of the value of these things, or that 
gold shall represent value at all. The ordi- 
nance of the government propels the circula- 
tion by making it necessary in business, and to 
pay taxes and public revenues, when the 
money is of uncertain character. And when 
the value is of the fixed and stable character 
that belongs to the precious metals, the circu- 
lation is propelled by the desire and necessity 
to procure the services and property, the 
things of real value, that custom and law 
make the money the sign of In a primitive 
state of society, it was not possible to estab- 
lish confidence in the permanency in the value 
of money, and its interchangeability with 
property in any other way than by making it 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 73- 

of such metals as gold or silver. These metals 
are but little subject to change or waste by- 
rust, and are limited in supply. These cir- 
cumstances determined society and govern- 
ments to make money of gold and silver, and 
the choice of the metals for money, establish- 
ed the value of the metals. It is not the value 
of the metals that give value to money, it is 
the use that governments and society make of 
money that gives it value. To secure an in- 
terchangeable relation between the represen- 
tative value that society and government 
give to money, and the real value that is in 
labor and property, the government compels 
the people to constantly use money in their 
worldly affairs. This necessity induces the 
people to exchange the real value they have 
In their labor and property, for the represen- 
tative value in money; notwithstanding that 
the representative value cannot, in the nature 
of things, be as true as the real value, even 
when the money is made of gold or silver. 
The government having by its laws, brought 
the people to a willingness to exchange the 
real value in their labor and property, for the 



Y* RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

representative value in money, to the degree, 
at least, of supplying themselves with money 
to pay business balances and taxes and public 
revenues ; there will be established an inter- 
:hangeable relation between money, and labor 
and property ; unless there proves to be a de- 
ficiency in the supply of money, or that the 
holders of the money refuse to exchange it 
for labor or property. If the exchange failed 
because there was not sufficient money, it 
would clearly be the duty of government to 
lessen the taxes, or to increase the supply of 
money. But if the exchange of labor and 
property for money, to the degree of supplying 
the necessary money for business, and to pay 
taxes and public revenues, failed because the 
holders of it would not exchange the fictitious 
representative value in money, for the real 
value that is in labor and property, it would 
be conclusive proof that there was some wrong 
at work, that was destroying all order among 
men, and that it was determining the acts of 
the holders of the money. For it cannot be 
conceived that the holders of a fictitious rep- 
resentative would not exchange it for the real 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 75 

thing represented, unless there was an extra- 
neous inducement leading to the result. If 
the holders of the representative value in 
money were as willing to exchange it for the 
thing represented as the people will be to 
give the real for the representative, to the de- 
gree of supplying their business with necessary 
money and to pay taxes and revenues, the ex- 
change will be made ; and business Vv^ill go on 
among the people ; labor will be nourished, 
and production and consumption will both 
continually increase, and worldly prosperity 
will be attainable by all, as the reward of hon- 
esty and industry. An increase in the volume, 
as long as the money would pay business bal- 
ances and taxes, would not have a tendency to 
turn the money out of the real values that are 
in labor and property, but the reverse. When 
the holders of money retire it from business, 
by refusing to exchange it for labor and prop- 
erty, and by the process starve labor, a great 
wrong is inflicted upon the people, by means 
of the monetary laws of the government. 
And it is the duty of the learned to point out 
the wrong, and the cure for it. And every 



76 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

word of truth on the subject will satisfy rea- 
son. But to say or Imply that an increase in 
the volume of money, or any other thing that 
In its nature vv^ould lessen confidence in the 
permanency of the representative value in it, 
would cause the holders to refuse to exchange 
It for the real values, Is an absurdity on its 
face. Reason says at once, that if money re- 
tires from productive business to deal in 
shadows, it springs from another cause than 
an increase of the volume of money. 

What the cause was in France, may be in- 
ferred from the cause in the United States. 
We know that the holders of money In our 
country, retire it from business, and refuse to 
exchange It for labor or property, because 
they know the legal and social necessity there 
Is upon all the people to procure and use It 
In connection with their worldly affairs ; and 
they retire it from business, and refuse to ex- 
change it for labor or property, that they may 
levy tribute upon the mass of the people, for 
the use of it ; while by notes, and promises to 
pay money, the}^ still hold it under their own 
control. This handling of money, in its direct 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 77 

effects, breaks up productive business ; for 
common perception as well as experience tells 
the people that money cannot perform the 
functions that exist for it In business, and to 
pay taxes and public revenues, while It is held 
as private merchandise, and its value changed 
at will of the holders, for their own gain. And 
for their gain it is compelled to make period- 
ical movements out of business to them. 

The enterprising people seeing the impos- 
sibility of using money in the slow productive 
business, use it in speculation ; and this runs 
into the gambling and stock-jobbing, describ- 
ed by the President of the University. The 
condition is in no degree owing to the volume 
of money, or on account of the material that 
it is made of; but is owing to the use that the 
owners of the money, that is, those who have 
it and do not owe it, make of It. If the gov- 
ernment should over issue paper money, while 
It is all legal tender, and will pay taxes and 
public revenues. It will only make the people 
the more willing to turn it Into property and 
labor, that produces property. And labor will 
only be the more sought after and encoura^^- 



78 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

ed. But when there is another use made of 
money, namely, that of collecting tribute for 
the use of it, the controllers of the money 
break up all orderly business ; for no amount 
of money entering business, on promises to 
make frequent return movements to the lend- 
ers, with additional money, can support busi- 
ness. In such case, likewise, the money-hold- 
ers have the greatest possible inducement to 
have the volume of money reduced, as there- 
by all danger of competition among lenders 
is removed, and their capital increased also. 
That the holders of gold should make a great 
difference between it and the paper-money, 
would not check business, as long as the 
paper would perform the function of exchang- 
ing values in business affairs, and pay taxes 
and revenues of governmxent. This Professor 
White might have seen in the United States 
in 1864, when the difference between gold and 
paper money was greatest ; it had no tenden- 
cy to check business. The control of money 
as a capital to lend, did even then check the 
investment of the paper-money in real estate, 
excepting in leading cities that were stimula- 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 79* 

ted at that time by the business of preparing 
army snpplies. As long as the people were 
able to get money that would pay taxes and 
business balances, as they were by the dis~ 
bursements of the government for labor and 
property during the war, and until those dis- 
bursements were exhausted among the people, 
business went on and increased. But as soon 
as the disbursements fell from the war scale, 
and the money was exhausted among the peo- 
ple, and business had to depend on money 
that was borrowed on promises to return to 
the lender with increase, the death-struggles 
of business began, and go on to be ended only 
by the transfer of^ all property to the money- 
lenders, and subjugation of the laboring and 
productive classes to them. 

There is no money in the United States 
now, nor has there been for the last thirty-five 
years, that the people were, not willing and 
anxious to take in business, or in exchange for 
most valuable labor or property. Why is it 
that the money will not be exchanged for this 
labor or property } The refusal brought the 
business trouble of 1857, ^^^<^ is breaking up 



80 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

all business now. If there is any meaning in 
the statements attributed to Professor White, 
it is that the money-holders refuse to put it 
in business, or exchange it for labor or prop- 
erty, because it is inflated paper-money, and is 
not gold, or reduced to a gold standard. 

If the controllers of the money, and their 
aiders and abettors, were not smitten by that 
blindness that in all ages led those engag- 
ed in great public wrong to their utter over- 
throw, they would see the folly of their prac- 
tices and teachings, and that they are stand- 
inor over a volcano, with nothinor but the thin- 
nest possible crust under their feet. There is 
no truth taught on the subject of taking in- 
terest on money, that the writer knows of, but 
the neglected truth of the Word of God; and 
it is not strange that there should be some 
clamor for an increase of paper-money as the 
Professor says there was in France. For in 
the absence of true instruction, it would be 
the remedy first thought of, for business fam- 
ishing for money. 

That there is so little of such clamor in the 
United States, ought to admonish the money- 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 81 

holders that they have a different order of 
mind to deal with. Mind that will suffer, and 
wait, and investigate, until the foundation 
principles of money are reached ; and being 
found, will build there, and will clear away 
everything that would obstruct the building, 
or mar the effect. 



82 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 



CHAPTER XL 



MONTESQUIEU ON MONEY-LENDING. 

The business of lending money for interest 
has always been so influential among men, 
that it shaped or colored all learning and in- 
struction on the subject of money and civil 
laws. 

In the Divine Word alone is the truth re- 
tained on lending for interest, and the learned 
among men treat the Divine Truth on the 
subject as an antiquated and impractical idea 
or " counsel of religion." 

Montesquieu, in his work entitled " Spirit of 
Laws," says : 

" Specie is the sign of value. It is evident 
he who has occasion for this sien, ouc>'ht to 
pay for the use of it, as Vv^ell as anything else 
he has occasion for. All the difference is that 
other things may be either hired or bought ; 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 83 

whilst money, which is the price of things, 
can only be hired and not bought." 

Here, in a note, he says : " We speak not 
of gold and silver considered as merchandise.^* 
And continues: "To lend money without in- 
terest, is certainly an action laudable and ex- 
trem.ely good ; but it is obvious that it is a 
counsel of religion, and not of civil law. In 
order that trade may be successfully carried 
on, it is necessary that a price be fixed on the 
use of specie ; but this should be very incon- 
siderable. If it be too high, the merchant 
who sees that it costs him more in interest 
than he can gain by commerce, will undertake 
nothine; if there is no consideration to be 
paid for the use of specie, nobody will lend it ; 
and here, too, the merchant will undertake 
nothing. I ^m mistaken when I say nobody 
will lend ; the affairs of society will ever make 
it necessary. Usury will be established, but 
Vv^ith all the disorders with which it has been 
constantly attended. The laws of Mahomet 
confounded usury with lending upon interest. 
Usury increases in Mahometan countries, in 
proportion to the severity of the prohibition. 



84 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

The lender indemnifies himself for the dan- 
ger he undergoes of suffering the penalty. In 
those eastern countries, the greater part of 
the people are secure of nothing. There is 
hardly any proportion betwec n the actual pos- 
session of a sum, and the hopes of receiving 
it again after having lent it. Usury, then, 
must be raised in proportion to the danger of 
insolvency. 

" The greatness of maritime usury is found- 
ed on two things: the danger of the sea, 
which makes it proper that those who expose 
their specie, should not do it without consid- 
erable advantage ; and the ease with which 
the borrower, by means of commerce, speed- 
ily accomplishes a variety of great affairs. 
But usury with respect to land-men not being 
founded on either of these two reasons, is 
either prohibited by the legislators, or what is 
more rational, reduced to proper bounds." 

It is evident that if the members of society 
who have occasion to use money cannot buy 
it, that is, cannot get it in exchange for the 
things that it is the price of, but must hire the 
use of it, that is, must borrow it and pay it 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 85 

back with additional money, It will be impos- 
sible for society to exist. If money is bor- 
rowed and to be paid back with interest, the 
need of money to pay back the borrowed 
money will be greater by the sum of the in- 
terest, than the need of society. And If the 
affairs of society, as the author says, will ever 
make it needful, the paying back would come 
in the way of the succeeding needs of society, 
and would increase the succeeding needs by 
the whole weight of the previous needs, in- 
creased by the interest on the borrowed 
money; a condition that could not be borne, 
and society would be destroyed by its inabili- 
ty to get the necessary money. 

The author is not speaking of the use of 
money in the affairs of society, that Is merely 
for the convenience of society, and which 
might be supplied by the use of something 
else, or might be dispensed with ; for, he says, 
he speaks not of gold and silver as articles of 
merchandise, but of money created by the law 
of the State. The need of money created by 
the law of the State, and by custom of society, 
is more than a mere convenience ; and the 



86 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE" IN MONEY. 

need will disorganize society, If It Is not sup- 
plied. The author appears to have seen the 
dilernma the condition placed society in, and 
tried to excuse it by citing the failure of Ma- 
hometan laws to prohibit taking interest on 
money. He then gives two reasons for high 
interest on money to be engaged in maritime 
affairs, but says " usury with respect to land- 
men, not being founded on either of the rea- 
sons governing in the case of maritime usury^ 
is either prohibited by the legislators, or, what 
is more rational, reduced to proper bounds." 
If the principle he starts out with, that 
those who have occasion to use money ought 
to pay for the use of it, whilst they cannot 
buy the money itself, is founded on reason 
and the rights of the holders of the money, 
it is hard to see by what authority the legisla- 
tors would interfere to reduce the interest to 
proper bounds, or to prohibit it, for the bene- 
fit of land-men, or any other people. Again, 
if the failure of Mahomet to prevent interest 
by severe legislation against It, Is worth any- 
thing to prove that which he brought It up to 
prove, that is, the impractlcablllLy of prevent- 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 8T 

ing Interest by severe legislation against it, 
why does he suggest to legislators to prohibit 
it, or, as more rational, to reduce it to an in- 
considerable quantity for the land-men ? 

It would naturally be as difficult to reduce 
interest to an inconsiderable quantity, as to 
prohibit It ; for when it was so small as to be 
inconsiderable, there would be no, or but little, 
opposition to taking it off altogether ; that is, 
to prohibit It. The learned author appears to 
have been dreadfully confused, by the ques- 
tion of Interest on money. If he could have 
consented to let the light of the Divine Truth 
rest upon the question as It Is In the Word of 
God, it would have enlightened his path so that 
he might have been able to travel in a consis- 
tent course. But when he started off with the 
intimation that that light was not sufficient to 
lead civil law, he might be expected to unset- 
tle the foundation of his edifice as he did. He 
started out to excuse and justify lending money 
for Interest. There is no foundation for reason 
in that direction, as his staggering shows. He 
was bold enough ; at the first bound he vault- 
ed Into the position that money made by the 



88 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

government to be the sign of value, cannot be 
bought with the things that it is the sign of. 
He conveys the impression that the people 
have no right to expect money to circulate in 
that way, but must expect to borrow it, to be 
paid back with interest. From this irrational 
position, it could not be expected that he 
would advance rationally. 

Besides the error that the writer of the 
" Spirit of Laws " makes, in taking it for 
granted that the holders of money have a 
right to lend it for interest, there are two 
other errors that are very generally commit- 
ted, in considering the business of lendi^ng for 
interest. The hrst is, that the lenders of 
money are necessarily the main gainers in the 
operation ; and the second error is that the 
legislation that may be instituted to correct 
the evil, ought to be directed to the protec- 
tion of the borrowers, and for their benefit. 

The business of lending money for interest 
is a public injury ; and legislation to correct 
and prevent it, must be for the protection of 
the public, and the fines must inure to the 
government, the money-making power. 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. O^ 

Montesquieu, In his " Spirit of Laws," quotes 
from Ulpian that " he pays least who pays 
latest," and says : " This decides the question 
whether interest be lawful ; that is, whether the 
•creditor can sell time, and the debtor pay for it." 

As a principle this is unsound, like all other 
things said in favor of the right to lend money 
for interest. The increased value of money 
at the time of the latest payment, may m.ake 
it the greatest and best, without any increase 
in the quantity of the money. Gold dollars 
iluctuate in value very much, when they are 
tested by labor and property, the things that 
test the value of money. Any person who 
lias been doing business in our country, in the 
years 1874 and 1875, knows that money, that 
is, gold, has appreciated nearly one hundred 
per cent, since that time, and is still very rap- 
idly appreciating; consequently a payment in 
gold now, would be fully twice as valuable as 
it would have been two years ago. The prin- 
ciple of the fluctuation of money as to value 
is shown by Professor Jevons, in his work en- 
titled " Money and the Mechanism of Ex- 
change." 



90 RIGHTS OF '1 HE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

In speaking of " The Standard Unit of 
Valnel' he says : " The expression standard 
unit of value, will indeed be almost certainly 
misunderstood as implying the existence of 
something of fixed value. As we have seen, 
however, (page 1 1) value merely expresses the 
essentially variable ratio in which two com- 
modities exchange, so that there is no reason 
to suppose that any substance does for two 
days together, retain the same value. All 
that a standard of value means is, that some 
uniform, unchangeable substance is chosen, in 
terms of which all ratios of exchange may be 
expressed and calculated, without any regard 
whatever to the feelings or mental phenomena 
which the commodities produce in men. For 
reasons already stated, one of the metals, 
gold, silver, or copper, has usually been con- 
sidered most suitable for constituting the 
standard substance." 

Lending money for interest is a wrong 
against every human right in worldly business ; 
and when authors, even the most learned and 
wise on other things, try to excuse or justify 
it, they lose their wisdom and talk foolishly. 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 91 



CHAPTER XII. 



BANKING AND CLEARING-HOUSE SYSTEM. 

To illustrate the result of business that is 
carried on under the now universal operation 
of money-lending and banking-, we will look 
at the operation as it progresses every day 
around us. We see that nearly all the money 
that is received in business is immediately 
deposited in bank. By this operation all the 
money that can be said to be in business is 
brought out of the pockets of the people and 
all other places, and deposited once, at least,, 
every ninety days. A great deal of it is de- 
posited over and over again during that time. 
The disbursements in business are nearly all 
made by cheques and drafts against the de- 
posits. These cheques and drafts rarely take 
up the money, but are entered to the credit 
of the persons to whom they are given ; and 



^2 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

they carry as much of the deposits as they 
call for, to the c^redit of those persons. They 
again, by cheques or drafts, transfer the de- 
posits to those persons to whom they want to 
make payments, who a^^ain have them entered 
on the books of the banks that they do busi- 
ness with, to their credit, and the money 
becomes their deposits in those banks, or pays 
debts, as the case may be. Of all the money 
that is deposited in bank, there is a very small 
portion taken up in money again, in the way 
of making disbursements in business. As 
said before, the bulk of all such disbursements 
, are made by cheques or drafts against the 
-deposits ; and these cheques and drafts are 
balanced against each other, while the money 
to balance the account between the banks is 
sent to the banks that it is due to, by those 
that prove to be owing it. But of all the 
money that is gathered from the people by 
the operation of business, and which, as said 
before, in the course of about ninety days, 
takes all the money there is for business, there 
is but a small portion paid back to the people. 
On the contrary, from the day it enters the 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY, O,?- 

banks It becomes capital In them to be held to 
lend. And it never enters business again in 
exchange for labor and property, the only 
entry by which money can truly be said to be 
In business. But when It leaves the banks It is 
securely bound to return at a time set to suit 
the Interest of the banks, and to bring more 
money with It ; while the same money had 
previously been borrowed of them on pro- 
mises for Its return with increase, and is now 
owed many times over to them for itself. 
Thus, once In ninety days, or less time, by the 
operation of depositing the money In bank 
and by the use of cheques and drafts, the 
entire money used in business Is swept Into 
the banks, to be added again to the debt of 
the people, by their unavoidable borrowing of 
the money. Instead of getting It In their busi- 
ness, as they would If It was not for the 
business of money-lending. But this, hard 
as it Is, Is not all that the people have to 
encounter from money-lending. There are 
vast debts for borrowed money, controlled by 
private money-lenders, and on these debts 
there are large sums of money constantly 



94 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

gathered and held for similar operations. 
From these facts of the daily working of the 
business of money-lending, it is seen that the 
impossible task is laid upon the people to 
borrow money and keep it in business and in 
the treasuries of the country, and also at short 
set times to return it all, many times increased, 
to the banks and money-lenders; or, as the 
alternative, to be ostracized from society. The 
mere operation of withholding the money 
from circulating in exchange for labor and 
property, and compelling people to borrow it 
on promise to return it with increase, in a very 
few years after the operation was extended 
over all the money, would break up business, 
and transfer the property to the money- 
lenders. But this, with a general system of 
depositing the money in banks, and disburs- 
ing by cheques and drafts in business, with 
the operation of the clearing-house, would 
enable the banks and money-lenders to absorb 
a world every fev/ years, if it would only be 
put into their mill. It is simply magnificent 
on account of its proportions. 

Lending money for interest must be extir- 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 95 

pated by law, and hereafter prevented under 
penalty of confiscation of all money engaged 
in it to the government. Then business can 
be revived, and business people m.ay unite for 
the purpose of clearing, if they choose. Pro- 
fessor Jevons claims that there is great ad- 
vantage in it, by saving the use of money in 
a very large portion of business operations. 
The advantage may be reaped by the people, 
without cultivating the evil feature that the 
Professor appears to value so highly, namely, 
that of lending the money for interest. The 
selfish control of money breaks business. 
People should consider this fact from the effect 
that it has upon their own business, if they 
cannot from any higher motive. If they do, 
they will see that a clearing-house, to absorb 
the money from business, cannot be allowed 
to exist. In the present condition of affairs, 
there is no possibility of a revival of business, 
or that there shall not be a greneral breaklne 
up of productive employments, and a rapid 
transfer of property to the money-lenders. 
The^less people try to do business upon the 
plan in vogue, the longer it will be possible 



06 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

for any considerable portion of them to retain 
property in their own right. If it was possi- 
ble to revive business, to be carried on by 
borrowing money, as it would have to be done 
if carried on at all, and the effort was backed 
by all the property in the country, the money- 
lenders would take it all in a very few years. 
To show that the operation of depositing 
money in banks, and disbursing it by cheques 
and drafts, literally adds the money to the 
lending capital of the banks ; also to show 
that learned men appear to see nothing wrong 
in the effect on business and labor of holding 
money to lend, but, on the contrary, seem to 
think that it is a commendable operation, I 
quote from Professor Jevon's chapters on 
" Book Credit," and " Banking System." 

" Considerable economy of the precious 
metals arises, as we have seen, from passing 
about pieces of paper representing gold coin, 
instead of the coin itself But a far more 
potent source of economy, is what we may 
call the Cheque and Clearing System, where- 
by debts are not so much paid, as balanced off 
against each other. The germ of the method 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 97 

is to be found in the ordinary practice of book 
credit. If two firms have frequent transac- 
tions with each other, alternately buying and 
selling, it would be an absurd waste of money 
to settle each debt immediately it arose, when, 
in a few days, a corresponding debt might 
arise in the opposite direction. Accordingly, 
it is the common practice of firms having re- 
ciprocal transactions, to debit and credit each 
other in their books with the debt arising out 
of each transaction, and only to make a cash 
payment when the balance happens to become 
inconveniently great. To represent the high- 
ly complex system of book credit which is 
organized by the bankers of a large kingdom, 
we shall have to employ a method of dlagram- 
atlc notation. I will therefore remark that the 
simplest case or type of book-credit, is repre- 
sented by the formula 

P Q. 

Each of the letters, P and Q, indicates a per- 
son or a firm, and the line Indicates the exist- 
ence of transactions between them. Only in 
special cases, however, will this direct balanc- 
ing of accounts, render the use of cash or of a 



98 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

more complex system unnecessary. General- 
ly speaking, there will be a tendency for a 
surplus of goods to pass in one direction, so 
that money must pass in the opposite direc- 
tion. The manufacturer sells to the whole- 
sale dealer, the latter sells to the retailer, and 
the retailer to the consumer. By the inter- 
vention of the banker, however, the transac- 
tions of many different individuals, or even of 
many branches of trade, are brought to a 
focus, and a large proportion of payments can 
be balanced off against each other. 

SINGLE BANK SYSTEM. 

To obtain a clear notion of the way in 
which bankers help us to avoid the use of 
money as the medium of exchange, we must 
follow up the rise of the system from the sim- 
plest case to the complete development of the 
complex organization now existing in the 
United Kingdom. Let us imagine, in the first 
place, that there is an isolated town, having 
no appreciable dealings with other parts of 
the world, and possessing only a single bank, 
in which each inhabitant has deposited all his 
money. If any person, ^, then, wishes to 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 99 

make a payment to b, he need not go to his 
banker, draw out coin, and carry it to <5, but 
may hand to <^ a cheque requiring the banker 
to pay the coin to b, if needed. But if b makes 
payments in the same way, he will not need to 
draw out any coin. It would be a mere for- 
mality for b to receive the coin due from a, 
and then pay it back over the counter to the 
credit of his account with the same banker. 
The payment is made by merely writing the 
sum of money to the debit oi as account, and 
to the credit of Us account. If b wishes to 
make another payment to c, a similar record 
in the bankers ledger will accomplish the 
business. However many other traders, d, e, 
etc., there may be, their mutual transactions 
may be settled in the same way, without their 




seeing a single coin. We represent this ele- 
mentary banking organization by the above 
diagram. 

Thus, it is obvious that P represents the 



100 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

single banker, and a, b, c, d, e, his customers. 
The deposit banks of Amsterdam and Ham- 
burg form perfect illustrations of this arrange- 
ment. So long as we regard only the inter- 
nal transactions of a town, then a stationary 
amount of coin, lying untouched in the bank, 
will allov/ the whole to be accomplished. If 
the traders never require to make payments 
to a distance, the metallic money might be 
dispensed with altogether. But since any of 
the customers, a, b, c, etc., may want his money, 
the banker ought to keep at least as much as 
will meet possible demands." 

SYSTEM OF TWO BANKS. 

" As a second case, let us suppose that there 
is a town which is able to support two banks. 

\l /7 W // 

Some of the inhabitants keep their money In 
one bank, and some in the other, but all whom 
it is requisite to consider, have an account 
with one or the other. In the diagram, let P 
and Q be the two bankers, <2^, <5, c, d, being cus- 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 101 

tomers of P, and q, r, s, t, customers of O. 
Now, the mutual transactions of ^, b, c, d, will, 
as before, be balanced off in the books of P, 
and similarly with the customers of Q. But 
if a has to make a payment to q, the opera- 
tion becomes somewhat more complex. He 
draws a cheque upon P, and hands it to q, who 
may, of course, demand coin from P. Not 
wanting coin, he carries the check to his own 
banker, Q, and pays it in to his account, in 
place of coin. It is the banker, Q, who will 
now have to present the cheque upon P, and 
it might seem as if the use of coin would be 
ultimately required. There will be other per- 
sons, however, making payments in the town 
in the same manner, and the probability is 
very great that some of these will result in 
giving P cheques upon Q, and some in giving 
Q cheques upon P. The two bankers, then, 
will be in the position of the two traders, be- 
fore described, (p. 251) who have a running 
account. At the worst the payment to be 
made in coin, will be only the balance of what 
is due in opposite directions ; but as this bal- 
ance will probably tend in one direction one 



102 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

day, and In the opposite direction the next 
day, the balance need only be paid when it 
assumes inconvenient proportions." 

COMPLEX BANK SYSTEM. 

" A large commercial town usually possesses 
several or many banks, each with its distinct 
body of customers. The mutual transactions 
of each body will, as before, be balanced off 
in the books of their common bank, but the 
larger part of the transactions will now be 
tross ones, resulting in a claim by one banker 
upon another. The probability is very great, 
indeed, that each banker will have to receive, 
as well as to pay, each day ; but it does not 
follow that he will pay to the same as those 
who are going to pay to him. The complex- 
ity of relations becomes considerable ; thus 
among fourteen banks there are — ^— or 91 dif- 
ferent pairs which may have mutual claims, 
and among fifty banks there would be no less 
than 1,225 pairs. The result is, that P might 
happen to have a considerable balance to pay 
to O, and yet might be going to receive about 
the same sum from R. or S. The actual car- 
rying about of coin, under such circumstances, 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 



lOS 



would be absurd, because a manifest extension 
of the book-credit system at once meets the 
difficulty. The several banks need only agree 
to appoint, as it were, a bafikers bank, to hold 
a portion of the cash of each bank, and then 
the mutual indebtedness may be balanced off, 
just as when a bank acts for individuals. In 
the figure we see four banks, P, Q, R, S, each 
with its own body of customers, but brought 
into connection with each other by the bank- 
ers' bank, X. 




^' P need not now send a clerk to present 
bundles of cheques upon O, R, and S, but can 
pay them into the central bank, X, where* 
after being placed to the credit of P and 
sorted out, they will be joined to similar par- 
cels of cheques received from Q, R, S, and 
finally presented at the banks upon which 
they are drawn. Thus all the payments made 
by cheques will be ejected without the use of 



104 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

coin, just as if there were only a single bank 
in the town. What each bank has to pay 
each day, will usually be balanced pretty close- 
ly by what it has to receive. Such balance as 
remains will be paid by a transfer in the books 
of X, the bankers' bank. It is not precisely 
true that there is in every English town, a 
bankers' bank, which thus manages the pay- 
ments between banks. The accountant's part 
of the work is carried out by an institution 
called the Clearing-House, managed by a 
committee of bankers, and the Bank of Eng- 
land is employed to hold the deposits of the 
bankers, and make transfers which close the 
transactions of each day." 

It has been said that the effect of deposit- 
ing the money in bank, and using cheques 
and drafts in business, practically gives the 
money to the banks to be lending capital ; it 
may be added that the high interest charged 
soon enables the banks to turn the balance of 
all accounts in their favor, and the money 
becomes theirs, in fact. 

It is not possible to convey in detail the 
evils that are inflicted by the few upon the 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 105 

many, by means of taking money out of the 
use that exists for it, in the business of society, 
and for which by law and custom of society it 
is made. For like drawing sap from a tree, 
the incision and gradual waste of the tree's 
life may be seen and expressed, but not the 
hung^ and thirst of the decaying tree and its 
branches, nor the efforts of the ebbing life to 
staunch the inexorable wound. The wreck of 
business among the people is easily seen, and 
may be described, if it was supposed to be 
useful to do more than call attention to the 
fact ; but what pen could describe the effect 
upon the minds of the people ; of the long 
years of struggling against fate, to save, firsts, 
their business and property; then their busi- 
ness and only a home ; then only one of these, 
to end at last with neither business nor a 
home, and only the inexorable law of govern- 
ment and society that demands the procuring 
and employment of money in worldly affairs, 
remains. Or, as the alternative, to sink out 
of society, and become a vagrant and pauper.. 
Though the bitter cup of merchandising in 
money has been forced upon the people with 



106 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

a relentless hand, reflection must convince 
them that they have but tasted it over the 
brim ; that the cup is full, and that nothing 
but complete degradation and servitude will 
drain it. There is no stopping-place or mid- 
dle-ground. It must either be a right to get 
money in exchange for property or services, 
unrestricted by any right to make gain by 
merchandising in it, with the possibilities of 
general freedom and elevation of the masses 
of the people through honorable employments 
and cultivation, or it must be vassalage of 
business and the producing millions, and wide- 
spread pauperism. 

The contest is inaugurated ; it cannot be 
avoided; it must go on as it is going; busi- 
ness and labor to be more and m.ore oppres- 
sed and degraded, or the people must revert 
to first principles. Re-read the Declaration 
of Independence and the Constitution of the 
United States, and elect a Congress that will 
assert and maintain the rights of the whole 
people in money ; which is no less or other 
than their rights tp " life, liberty, and the pur- 
suit of happiness." 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY, 107 



CHAPTER XIIL 



DEFENDING MONEY-LENDING. 

The arguments advanced in defense of 
money-lending, like those in defense of all 
other great wrongs, are unworthy of reason- 
ing men. To illustrate this we will cite the 
arguments that the writer has met with most 
frequently, in works and discussions on money- 
lending. It is, " that if there is no consider- 
ation to be paid for the use of money, nobody 
will lend it, and that, as a consequence, a great 
many could not get money to go into busi- 
ness. 

The final conclusions of the above condi- 
tions, must strike every one as being false and 
absurd. If the defenders of the evil had fol- 
lowed up the condition, that if there is no 
consideration to be paid for the use of money 
nobody will lend — which, in itself, is true 



108 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

enough — with the same study and care that 
they manifest in their efforts to defend the 
money-lenders, they would have been able to 
picture a condition in the affairs of society 
unattended Vv^ith the disorders " with which," 
in the words of a noted writer, " usury must 
always be attended." 

But instead of this, they try to make it ap- 
pear, that if no gain can be made by lending 
money, nobody who had money, would part 
with it, and that it would be impossible for 
any person to get it. Now, it is very clear 
that such a condition of affairs would have ex- 
actly the opposite tendency. No one of right 
mind would hold money if it was bringing 
him nothing, but was wasting and being taxed 
away, any longer than he could help ; when^ 
by investing it in business and property, he 
could be making something out of it. If lend- 
ing money for interest was prohibited, it 
would not, as some seem, to think, interfere, 
in the least, vv^ith any one who could have done 
so before, engaging in any orderly business. 

The conditions under which money ever 
has been lent — and much more so now — with 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 109 

a few exceptions, are such that any one who 
could borrow, could obtain the same amount 
and even more, if the money was, as it should 
be, only profitable to the holder as he parted 
with it in exchange for property, or produc- 
tive labor. For it is clear that under such a 
condition of affairs, the property that was 
before required for security could readily be 
converted Into money, as all kinds of property 
would be sought after for investment. This, 
also, would cause the regulation of the price 
of property In the only orderly way, that is, in 
accordance with the just law of supply and 
demand. The exceptions referred to above 
are indeed exceptions. They are those who, 
by good business qualifications and talent 
have obtained money to invest in business, 
through the confidence of friends. Now, again, 
it is evident that under the above condition of 
business affairs, such persons would be any- 
thing but sufferers from it. There would be 
a great demand for them to fill honorable 
positions, and on salaries, too, that would en- 
able them to become partners or Independent. 
And while they would be relieved from the 



110 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

cares and dangers attending business done on 
borrowed capital, they would be free from the 
almost inevitable crash and partially-paid cred- 
itors that follow the attempt to pay back the 
money borrowed and invested in business. 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. Ill 



CHAPTER XIV. 



IMMORAL EFFECTS OF MONEY-LENDING. 

The effect of money-lending does not ne- 
cessarily make men drunkards, thieves, or 
murderers ; but its effects upon the morals of 
the people are very bad. When people find 
their business breaking up, despite their most 
earnest efforts and frugality, and see upon all 
sides of them discouragements to the produc- 
ing classes, while the money-lenders are reap- 
ing a rich harvest, they are very apt to feel 
that the government, in making money, and 
making it the only legal sign of value and 
legal tender, and permitting it to be made 
merchandise of, is a hard master. The loss of 
respect for the laws, and the thought that they 
inflict injustice, and that by the injustice, pri- 
vation and want Is forced upon dear and de- 
pendent ones, are bad instructors of honesty 



il2 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

and morals. If the thoughts have so little 
scope as not to comprehend the injustice of 
the monetary laws, that leave the producing 
masses of the people to become the prey of 
the money-holders, while there is a conscious- 
ness of the increasing poverty of the produc- 
ers of wealth ; and of the idle luxury of the 
money-lenders, the declension to the conclu- 
sion that there is no such thing as justice, will 
become very easy. This, also, is a bad school 
for any of the humanizing virtues. While the 
uninstructed but industrious people are going 
through these sad experiences, there is nothing 
in the current literature touching the condi- 
tion of affairs, that has any tendency to 
strengthen in the mind the stricken principles 
of right, or to check a downward tendency. 
Conscious of having lived lives of severe in- 
dustry and rigid frugality, and that they and 
their class are sinking deeper and deeper into 
poverty, they are told that it is all owing to, 
extravagant living, and to too much produc- 
tion ; and that what is needed is to live more 
.economically, and to wait until the surplus 
production is worked off. Instead of giving 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 113 

support to the wavering and doubting minds, 
hope is taken from them, and they are left to 
sink. The degradation of the masses of the 
people, as the result of the money being taken 
out of business and held to lend, is no new- 
thing ; it existed in all countries where the 
business prevailed. It reduced the industrious 
and frugal people of ancient Rome to pover- 
ty, and then to the degradation of receiving 
alms from the public treasuries and store- 
houses ; and it is rapidly making vast numbers 
of the people of the United States familiar 
with the same degradation. In midsummer 
of 1876, it is reported that fifteen hundred 
people received support from public charity 
in the city of Columbus, Ohio, besides the in- 
mates of the poor-house. In the Cincinnati 
Daily Gazette, of Thursday, July 27, 1876, 
under the head of " Bread Riot/' it is reported 
that, "In accordance with a call from some 
perturbed spirits, the workmen, who could 
conscientiously call themselves idle and starv- 
ing, met on the Esplanade yesterday morning, 
about eight o'clock, as a method of their re- 
sentment at the present condition of affairs." 
8 



114 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

Passing on we find that they went to the city 
building, where " the assembled toilers were 
informed that nothing could be done for them 
at the present. Making the best- of the re- 
fusal, they distributed themselves as if they 
were waiting, after the manner of the antique 
and noble Romans, to have elemosynary corn 
distributed to them." 

Instances of this kind are becoming pain- 
fully frequent, and the reports of the breaking 
up of the long established and useful business 
of the country are so common, that they have 
ceased to attract attention. To give further 
proof of the pitiable condition that the labor- 
ing people of the country are reduced to, we 
insert here from the New York Herald oi the 
23d of August, 1876 : 

"Work or Bread. — Much interest Is felt by 
the idle workingmen of Newark, in the issue 
between the idle workingmen of the metrop- 
olis and the authorities, touching the question 
of supplying work. So it is in Elizabeth and 
other leading cities of the State. The work- 
ingmen of Elizabeth have addressed to the 
authorities a petition, which is as follows i 



• RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 1 15 

* The undersigned, citizens of the city of Eliza- 
beth, and the most of us with families de- 
pendent upon us for support, earnestly and 
respectfully ask your honorable body to take 
some action that will provide us with work. 
Should the common council, In their wisdom, 
resolve In favor of some public improvements, 
the city authorities can give labor to many of 
our number, who are now not only out of 
work, but actually In want of the necessaries 
of life. Hoping our humble petition may be 
favorably received, we shall ever pray,' etc. 
Accompanying the petition was another from 
property-owners, urging that, in the interests 
of humanity, the requests of the workingmen 
be complied with." 

Can anybody doubt the demoralizing ten- 
dency of the wrecked, hopeless condition set- 
tling down upon the workingmen, the pro- 
ducers of the world's wealth, though they are } 



116 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 



CHAPTER XV. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 

The question relating to money, like every 
other question, when looked at from first prin- 
ciples, has just two sides to it ; one is the 
right side, and the other is the wTong side. 
Usage and changes may obscure the right, 
and make it difficult to arrive at conclu- 
sions unmixed with wrong, but in its first prin- 
ciples it is not so. When right and wrong 
have become mixed in any matter of inquiry 
there is no way to get a view of the truth, but 
to resolve the question into its original ele- 
ments, and study the elements in their own 
light. There has been an effort in this little 
book to bring up this elementary work and 
urge its importance, and also in some degree 
to perform the work of analyzing the questions 
relating to money. It is supposed that the 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 117 

work performed so far Is much in the nature 
of quarrying blocks of stone that others will 
cut and polish for themselves ; but the work 
must go on. This question must be presented 
to everyone stripped of the covering of mys- 
tery with which, of late years, It is claimed by 
many to be surrounded. Mystery Is a very 
suspicious robe for anything that concerns the 
people. Anything that concerns the people 
to know Is not mysterious. It may be com- 
mon ; lying on the surface of material things 
and directly effecting the first thoughts of 
everyone, and therefore easily understood by 
everyone, as the questions concerning money 
are ; or It may be complex and require closer 
Investigation and higher points of observation, 
but If It afTects the human being It Is not mys- 
terious. The term when applied to questions 
affecting the people has nothing In it but the 
acknowledgment of Ignorance ; unless It Is a 
special coinage to cover up falsity and wrong, 
as Is certainly the only use there is for the 
term In questions connected with money. 
There is nothing wrong In using the term 
mystery, If It Is understood that It Is merely 



118 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

offered as an acknowledgment of ignorance ; 
but if it is offered as an end or barrier to 
thought and investigation on an)/ subject 
affecting the people, it is wrong. Of all things 
that affect the affairs of human beings money 
is the most common and pervading, and it 
controls the worldly interest of every indivi- 
dual. Can anyone believe that if it was not 
taken out of its function and wrongfully 
applied to another there would be any mys- 
tery or even complexity of character or func- 
tion about it. If there was, that circumstance 
alone would prove it to be an enormity, and 
that it oupht not to exist ; for thino-s that are 
common, and that affect the life of all, are 
easily understood by all, even by those of 
ordinary information. What, then, is the 
meaning of the mystery that is thrown around 
the questions relating to money ? The source 
from which the claim of mystery comes may 
help us to understand why it is raised. If 
there was any truth in the application of the 
term ; if the subject was really complex and 
required, great scope of thought to understand 
it, the first, and, in fact, the only ones, likely 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 119 

to be perplexed by the question would be the 
common people, those whose thoughts it is 
supposed take in but a very small circle. But 
they never speak of the mysteries of finance 
or money. The expression never originated 
with them. If they use it, it is a sure sign that 
they have been at a political meeting, and 
have heard candidates for office talk, or that 
they have been reading political platforms. 
The common people know that money is 
wonderfully simple, and that it simplifies 
everything that it comes in contact with. 
They know that it is as essential in their 
worldly affairs as the air is to their bodily life, 
and that death to business must be the result 
of depriving it of money, as surely as it is the 
result of depriving the body of air to breathe. 
Now, if a number of men should commence 
business, and, for power, dam up a stream, and 
thereby fill the air of a populous country with 
malaria, and one after another of the people 
were becoming sick and dying, there might be 
some talk of mystery, and it would be sure to 
originate with the operators of the unwhole- 
some business and their friends. If the suf- 



120 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

fering people had no remedy, or, at leasts 
thought that they had none, they would suffer 
and die, but they would not talk about it as a 
mystery. They might lose respect for their 
government if it failed to give them relief ; 
and some of them, in the rebellious spirit of 
Job's wife, might think of cursing God and 
dying, but they would not stultify common 
reason and sense by calling it a mystery. The 
same is true of money. The common people 
know that under the laws of the government 
it is essential to their business, and that if it 
does not circulate in their business in ex~ 
change for that which they have to exchange 
for it, that is, in exchange for their labor and 
property, that their business must die. They 
may see the bankers and money-lenders hold- 
ing the money to lend, and refusing to part 
with it for anything but promises for its re- 
turn to them with increase, while the business 
all over the country is reeling to its fall from 
want of the money, and even feel that their 
own business is suffering, but they v/ill not 
call it a mystery until they have listened to 
the apologizers of the evil business of bank- 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 121 

ing and money-lending. These Invent a new 
use for the term, to excuse or conceal the eviL 
The common people may be made to think 
that there is no remedy, and they will quietly 
see their business broken up, and themselves, 
and families impoverished, and even pauper- 
ized ; but they will not call it a mystery, and 
it is well. The straight-forward common hon- 
esty and sense of the people who look at 
things and speak about them as they are, is 
the one thing that gives hope of the elevation 
of the race. It is now the duty of the peo- 
ple to look at this question of money, in the 
straight-forward light that it occupies in busi- 
ness affairs. 

In the business both of the eovernment and 
people, it is necessary to have one authoritative 
measure and standard of value and medium of 
exchange. Why is this necessary .^ It is neces- 
sary in order that values may be measured and 
exchano-ed in laro-e or small amounts, to suit 
every person's circumstances, and that there 
may be a medium of communicating the ser- 
vices of each member of society to all, and of 
all to each. Money is made to perform these 



122 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

important functions in the affairs of the gov- 
ernment and people, and it does it perfectly 
and with the most exact justice and convene 
ience to all, when it circulates among the peo- 
ple, in exchange for their services and useful- 
ness. This usefulness for which money is ex- 
changed, may consist of services rendered or 
of property. The services and property are 
necessary to all in some form or other, and it 
might happen, owing to the common need of 
the services and property, that people would 
not justly and equitably exchange them for 
money, if custom and law did not make money 
necessary in business, to exchange values and 
to pay business balances, taxes, and public 
revenues. The legal character that is given 
to money, makes it a most equitable medium 
of performing the high offices just etiumera- 
ted, in the affairs of the government and the 
people. But how does it do It? Let us look 
at the operation. It does it because It is 
necessary In business for the people to get it 
to measure the value of everything, accord- 
ing to a law called the law of supply and de- 
mand, and pass it from one person to another 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 123 

in exchange for the things valued, so that any 
one may get money at the correct value of his 
property or services, and by means of it be 
placed in a condition to procure the things 
that he may stand in need of. As money is 
made of gold and silver, or of paper in quan- 
tities agreeing in supply with gold and silver, 
it will be reasonably uniform and just, and 
will operate for every person alike. That is 
reasonable, and there is no mystery about it. 
But suppose the money is allowed to become 
private merchandise, and that the holders are 
allowed to make gain, by charging for the use 
of it, while by notes and promises to pay 
money, they hold it bound to return to them, 
out of the business that it v/as made for; how 
will that operate on the affairs of the people ? 
Let Congressmen answer that question. 
They will have to answer it reasonably, and 
show by the answer that they are ready to 
make laws that will do justice to all, or they 
must cease to be Coneressmen. In the mean- 
time it will be seen that such a condition 
would open the door, and by pecuniary in- 
ducement, unlimited in amount would invite 



124 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

those who at the time might be in possession 
of the money, to perpetrate the most cruel 
wrong upon all other people. The efi'ect 
would be cruel beyond measure upon the pro- 
ducers ; it is the products of labor, and con- 
sequently labor, also, that are the principal 
subjects controlled by the money measure. 
Everything that operates to prevent or retard 
equitable and just exchange of money for 
property and labor, is borne directly, and to 
the remotest consequences, by the producers. 
Not only is all the interest paid by them, but, 
as has been shown before, all the consequen- 
ces of the waste of the time of the money in 
making return movements to the money-lend- 
ers, and the breaking of business connections 
effected by taking the money out of business to 
make the return, and from continually declin- 
ing values, and consequent discouragement of 
exchanging money for labor and property. 
In short, money-lending is robbery of the pro- 
ducing classes ; and it has nothing in itself to 
cure the evil it works, but goes on with In- 
creasing momentum till it Is prevented by lavv-; 
or, until it works revolution of governnipnt. 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 125 

The work of stopping, and hereafter pre- 
venting the great evil, is for the people. Jus- 
tice to all makes this work their duty. Al- 
though it Is nothing but the common principle 
of right and justice towards all, the argument 
in the present conditions will necessarily be 
addressed to the matter of protecting the ut- 
terly exposed rights and freedom of the pro- 
duclnp^ classes. 

The framers of the Constitution of the 
United States have made it easy work for the 
people to procure and maintain their rights in 
the money. For they provided in that im- 
portant instrument that " Congress shall have 
the right to coin money and to regulate the 
value thereof, and of foreign coins." No one, 
whose opinion will have any weight, will pre- 
tend that any other power, or that any person, 
can justly claim a right to put a value on 
money, by any rule not fixed and regulated by 
Congress ; or deny that Congress may, by 
fines and forfeitures and confiscations, main- 
tain its regulations of the value of money. 
All, therefore, that the people have to do, Is 
to unite in the election of a Congress that 



136 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

will repeal all bank charters and privileges, 
that allow making merchandise of money ; 
and that will enact a law prohibiting the taking 
of interest or gain, on any forhi of promise to 
pay money, except the promises of the United 
States, with forfeiture to the United* States 
government of all money and property involv- 
ed in violating the law. This will cause the 
money to seek the channels of business for 
which it is made, a condition that will at once 
restore the broken business of the country, 
to be no more disturbed by panics. It will 
also restore to all of the people, rich and 
poor, their common rights in the money, and 
neither more nor less, a boon that the pro- 
ducers of the world's wealth have not enjoyed 
since the fall of Adam. 

After more than four years of active inter- 
change of thought, with people of various 
business and professions, it is believed that 
the people will be almost unanimous in favor 
of such action, as soon as there is presented 
anything like a reasonable statement of the 
general rights in money. It is hoped that this 
book may prove sufficient for the purpose, 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 12T 

and afford substantial footing to maintain the 
rights of the whole people, In this their most 
important concernment. The business of 
lending money for Interest, has no rational or 
just ground to stand upon, and It must go 
down ; though the arguments used against It 
may be only like rough, undressed stones from 
the quarry. 

It is not supposed it will be necessary to 
disturb party lines, as there will be a vast 
majority of both parties In favor of It. Those 
occupying positions of preferment in the par- 
ties, will not be likely to be the first to move 
in the matter. It would be strange if they 
did. Their places of preferment being given 
to them on old grounds. It Is not to be ex- 
pected that they will make the first movement 
on new questions. But the people cannot 
afford to wait for those who, on account of 
circumstances that have no relation to the 
question at issue, will move slowly In it. The 
tendency to adhere to established thought 
and practice, operates with peculiar force with 
those known as the learned. Their learning, 
acquired through years of application to 



128 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

books and authorities, is not favorable ground 
lor thoughts that are new, and require the es- 
tablishing of new orders ; especially if it is to 
bring up the plain and unfashionable, and to 
disturb the influential. There is nothino- in 

o 

favor of this plain principle of justice to the 
laboring millions found in their learning, but 
every unreasonable thing on the other side ; 
and they will be most of all likely to let it 
alone. They will be slow to attack the prin- 
ciple of the common rights of the people in 
money, relieved of the right of private mer- 
chandise in it, when they come to consider it 
fairly, but it is not found in their books, and 
they must not be expected to take kindly to 
it at first. The public press was founded on 
different ideas, and it must not be looked to 
to lead off on this entirely new principle. But 
it also will not lift a type to oppose it. The 
work, then, is left entirely to the people. Their 
condition, as well as the condition of their de- 
scendants, depends upon their taking up the 
work, and performing it thoroughly. Organ- 
ize in your school districts, townships, coun- 
ties, and congressional districts ; and send 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 129 

men to Congress to do the work. The learn- 
ed may attack the style of this book. They 
may also attack the way in which the people 
go about the work of accomplishing the re- 
form. And it will be well for all to remem- 
ber, that the evil they are about to reform is 
an old one ; and that those who are engaged 
in banking and money-lending, have only 
shown themselves wise in the things of mam- 
mon, by going into the business, and not wait- 
ing until others took the start of them. The 
people must make the laws of the government 
right on the subject of making gain on money, 
while it is held as private merchandise, before 
they ask the holders of it to let it go in ex- 
change for property, or in business, and they 
will find all the better class of the money- 
lenders will operate with them. 

TITLE OF THE BOOK. 

The rights of the people in money is the 
title of this little volume. The title was 
adopted as expressing the result that the book 
is written to promote. 

In the latter part of the year 1871 the 
writer was watching the currents of business, 



130 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

and trying to trace their sources and tenden- 
cies, and he saw that the bankers and money- 
lenders were driving the money out of regular 
business into channels of speculation. That 
people were getting restive In regular busi- 
ness, and were seeking positions from which 
results could be reached quickly. 

The cause of this was discovered to be in 
tne fact that the money was controled by 
bankers and money-lenders, who compelled It 
to return periodically out of business to them- 
selves ; and that, as a result, all of what might 
be called the regular but slow-moving produc- 
tive business of the country was quite out of 
its reckoning and was getting into shoal water, 
where sailing was rough. 

So far, matters were seen pretty clearly, and 
also that it was a duty to work for a cure of the 
evil. That work was taken up at once, first in 
efforts to get those who were competent to 
bring it before the world by speaking and writ- 
ing, to engage in the work. Failing there, then 
in trying to get prominent officers of the gov- 
ernment and members of Congress, to take up 
the work of stopping merchandising in money. 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 131 

Not succeeding with men in office, the art 
of writing newspaper articles was tried, and 
always succeeded in getting hints that the 
articles were not needed. Everything else 
failing, it was determined to write a book. 
This little volume is the result. If it is at all 
important that the people should know their 
rights in money, a book to promote the object 
is needed. The publication of the title of 
the book developes the fact that there is a 
very general lack of thought and information 
on the subject of the common rights of the 
people in money. Intelligent men, candidates 
for Congress, discuss the question of finance 
as a question that capital, by which they mean 
money, and business, by which they mean 
trade, are interested in ; but without the least 
discernable thought that labor has any 
rights in money or finance until the labor 
is turned into money. They show the peo- 
ple truly that they have an interest in 
money ; that when they have gotten it for 
their labor they have an interest in the 
money having the highest possible value in 
it. That, in such case, it is their interest 



]32 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. ■ 

that the money should be gold or be at par 
with gold. 

Labor may be said to produce or renew the 
wealth of the world every year. Money is 
made to measure the value of the production 
or labor, and by a fair and just exchange of 
money for it to make just return for the labor 
or production. The rights of labor in money 
are, that the exchange of money for labor, and 
for property, the product of labor, shall pro- 
ceed on fair and equal terms. That this fair and 
equal exchange may take place, it is manifest 
that the holders of the money must not be 
allowed to make gain out of it while they hold 
it back from such exchange ; nor while, by 
notes or promises to pay money, they hold it 
bound to return to themselves. If the hold- 
ers of the money are allowed to make gain 
out of it Vv^hile they refuse to exchange it for 
property or labor, it is evident that the ex- 
change of money for the produced wealth can- 
not go on till the price of the property or 
labor falls sufficiently to compensate for the 
charge on the money, and also to afford suf- 
ficient allowance for the unmeasurable dis- 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 133 

asters that merchandising in money is known 
to bring upon trade. The rights of labor in 
money just referred to, are the rights of labor 
performed, but If these rights are violated, it 
is evident that the effect will be projected with 
intensified evil upon the labor to be perform- 
ed. The increase of the evil comes from 
diminished employment as well as constantly 
falling prices of labor. Besides the Important 
rights in money referred to, the laborers have 
the rights of the money-holders in the money 
they get. They have the right that the money 
shall be a true and, as nearly as may be, an 
unvariable measure of value and medium of 
exchange. But this right of the producers of 
wealth is as one drop of water to a bucketfull 
when compared to their right that money shall 
enter business in exchange for labor or prop- 
erty, without gain to a holder, or charge for 
the use of It, while, by notes or promises to pay 
money it Is bound to return to a lender. The 
discussion of money or finance, as It Is con- 
ducted by statesmen and writers on political 
economy In this age, Involves questions mere- 
ly of money and trade. 



134 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

The money-lender, claiming and exercising 
the right of merchandise in the money he 
holds, turns It into such channels as will realize 
for him the best profits byway of interest, and 
will allow him at short periods to recover 
possession of the money. Business, or trade 
in labor and property, finds itself unable to 
compete with the demands the money-lenders 
make or find for the money, and trade wants 
a change. 

Here the argument, not to say chaos, com- 
mences between trade and money. The 
money-lenders admit that trade, or business 
as it is called, cannot compete for the money, 
and they say the reason is, that everything is 
inflated by the superabundance of money is- 
sued during the war of the rebellion, and that 
the remedy for existing evils is to be found in 
a reduction of the prices of labor and resultant 
property to a gold standard. As might be 
expected, they ignore the rights of the people 
in money. Political economists are not slow 
to confirm their position, and claim a reduc- 
tion of the cost of production as the way to 
restore trade. 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 135 

Statesmen, liking the respectable company 
of learned writers and money-lenders, think 
they are about right, though some times, with 
a gentle inclination towards the people, ven- 
ture the remark that " the subject of money 
and finance is a very deep subject, a little too 
deep for them." But among them all, though 
the money is made to measure and transfer 
the wealth of the world from the producers of 
it to the consumers of it, no where is recog- 
nized the common rights of the producers in 
the money. With them all it is a question to 
be adjusted between the traders in labor and 
property and the money-holders. Though 
the rights of producers be still ignored, it will 
be impossible to adjust the contest between 
the traders and money-lenders on the terms 
the lenders do, and will always make for the 
money until they are controlled by govern- 
ment, as has been sufficiently shown in these 
pages. The rights of the producers that 
money shall cease to be an article of private 
merchandise, is so clear and important, and 
the way to secure the right through Congres- 
sional regulation of the value of money is so 



136 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

safe and easy, that the subject is commended 
with confidence to the care of the producers, 
with the remarks that it is the producers who 
pay all the interest and charges on money, 
and not the traders in their labor, or in prop- 
erty, the products of their labor. 

The investigation of the subject that pre- 
ceded the writing of the rights of the people 
in money, convinced the writer, as stated else- 
where in the book, that the reform of the great 
evil the producers are suffering through bank- 
ing and money-lending must spring from the 
producers themselves ; but the entire ignoring 
of their rights in money was not fully realized 
till the publication of the title of the book 
caused it to appear. If they are not yet fully 
convinced of the necessity of vigorously com- 
mencing the work of reforming the evil, they 
soon will be, for the evil will not weaken or 
cure itself. 

They need not be discouraged because the 
learned do not lead off in the reform. Com- 
mon reflection, with the rough cast arguments 
they may find in this volume, will make them 
more than a match for any sophistry that may 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 13T 

be offered against their common rights in 
money. 

EXTRAVAGANT LIVING. 

The universally acknowledged disorder that 
is existing in the business affairs of the people 
of the United States, and which has existed 
in a most tangible form for a number of years, 
is generally accounted for by people in easy 
circumstances as the result of extravagant 
living. The cool manner in which well-off 
people account for their neighbors' adverse 
worldly circumstances as the result of extrav- 
agant living, while they themselves live daily 
at an expense that these same neighbors never 
venture upon, even for a holiday, would be a 
worthy subject of study for the curious. 

The subject would not be the less sugges- 
tive that these philosophers would generally 
be found to be holding money bound to re- 
turn out of business to them, with large in- 
crease, under forfeiture of five or six for one. 
The form that the disorders of the country 
is generally seen under, is that of uncon- 
sumed production — production that is not 
and cannot be bought and consumed ; and 



138 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

from this cause factories and other sources of 
extensive production are compelled to stop 
or contract operations. These stoppages and 
contractions of productive employments tend 
to throw large numbers of the people out of 
work, and as a consequence the world is be- 
coming filled with idleness, dissipation and 
pauperism. Men with families to house, 
clothe and feed, go through the discouraging 
experience of finding themselves thrown out 
of employment, and through every effort they 
are capable of making, they sink deeper and 
deeper into poverty, till they are compelled to 
accept public charity, and become acknowl- 
edged paupers. 

Now, when Job's three friends heard of all 
this evil that was come upon him, they came 
every one from his own place: Eliphaz, the 
Temanite, and Bildad, the Shuhite, and Zop- 
har, the Naamathite ; for they had made an 
appointment together to come to mourn 
with him, and to comfort him." 

The record goes on to indicate that Jobs 
friends proved to be "miserable comforters;" 
but their words do not appear at very 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 139 

great disadvantage, either as to reason or 
intention, when compared with the comforters 
who philosophically inform the poorly-housed, 
half-clothed and half-starved victims of the 
present derangement in business, "that they 
are, and have been, living too extravagantly." 
These comforters claim that the evil is the 
result of over-production, stimulated by infla- 
ted money, and extravagant living, stimulated 
into life by the same cause. Now, extrava- 
gant living means extravagant consumption. If 
there was any general extravagance in living 
the superabundant produce would rapidly dis- 
appear ; in fact, a redundancy of production 
would never appear in the home labor of an 
extravagant-living people, for the two very 
potent reasons : first, that the extravagant 
living would consume the production, and 
second, that extravagant livers never prove 
to be superabundant producers. 

Another phase of these men's philosophy 
is, that there are too many trying to live by 
speculation, to the neglect of regular, produc- 
tive employment. This would be a great evil, 
and no doubt it exists to an unhealthy de- 



140 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 



gree, and it results from the evil business of 
money-lending-, but the over-production which 
is said to be the cause of the stag-nation in 
business, certainly could not spring from peo- 
ple speculating, to the neglect of productive 
labor. It is very evident the Temanite, the 
Shuhite, and the Naamathite of the present 
time, are as much of failures, as their archi- 
types vi^ere in Job's time. 

I never borrowed money, and consequently 
I never paid any interest. These were the 
remarks made by an industrious day laborer, 
on hearing the title and some of the princi- 
ples of the book entitled " The Rights of the 
People in Money" discussed. The subject 
being taken up and examined, it was found 
that in the three years of 1868, 1869 and 1870, 
he had performed an average of two hundred 
and seventy days work for every year ; and 
that his average wages had been one dollar 
and seventy-five cents per day, which made of 
wages for every year, four hundred and sev- 
enty-two dollars and fifty eents. While in the 
years 1873, 1874 and 1875, by his greatest 
efforts to get employment, he was employed 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 141 

one hundred and seventy days per year, at an 
average wages of one dollar and twenty-five 
cents per day, or two hundred and two dollars 
and fifty cents for every year ; a difference of 
two hundred and seventy dollars against every 
year of the last decade, or a difference of eight 
hundred and ten dollars in three years. By 
the best data furnished, it was thought that in 
the last decade, there had been an average 
saving in prices paid for articles of food and 
clothing consumed, of about twenty dollars 
for every year, or sixty dollars for the three 
years ; leaving a total loss in three years of 
seven hundred and fifty dollars, or just two 
hundred and fifty dollars per year, while he- 
admits that the year 1876, half gone, promises 
to be worse in results than any of the other 
years. 

This man is known to stand at the very 
head of that very large and useful class of 
men known as day laborers. Yet it is evident 
he is standing upon the very brink of pauper- 
ism, and unless the oppression is removed 
from the labor of the country, he must soon 
join that large and constantly increasing 



]42 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

throng, that have been compelled to receive 
public support. The productive labor of the 
country pays all the interest and charges upon 
money, whether the laborers do, or do not, 
borrow ; for, as said before on this subject, 
those who borrow money for business, do not 
pay the interest. The world might be chal- 
lenged in vain to show any true reason for 
rejecting the conclusion that the day laborer 
instanced, paid a portion of all the interest 
collected upon the money of the country, that 
bore the same relation to the whole interest 
paid, that his labor bore to the whole labor of 
the country. 

The labor pays all the interest collected 
upon money. The portion that may be left 
of the products of the labor, for the use and 
benefit of the laborers, depends upon the cir- 
cumstances under which the labor may be 
performed. In the years 1868, 1869 and 1870, 
there was still some portion of the money 
that had been paid by the government to the 
people, for war services and material, passing 
into circulation. This money supported busi- 
ness through those years, and labor received 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 143 

employment and reasonable support during 
that time. That money was exhausted by the 
year 1873, and the business of the country 
had to depend in the years 1873, 1874 and 
1875, as it does now, continually upon money 
borrowed. Labor, under the first circumstan- 
ces, had a margin left, that it was possible for 
the laborer to live upon, but not to live ex- 
travagantly, as every person of sense knows; 
while it is not possible for the laborers, under 
the circumstances of the last decade of years 
named, nor at the present time, to live the 
lives of free citizens. It is impossible but that 
under the existing circumstances of labor and 
business, a very large portion of that useful 
class of laborers known as day laborers, will 
fall into a condition to require public support. 
In saying that the laborer pays all the in- 
terest that may be collected on money used in 
the business of a country, it is not intended to 
deny that circumstances may occasionally 
cause the consumers of the products of labor 
to bear a part of the burden ; such circum- 
stances as grow out of war, might cause it for 
a short time. But no circumstances will, for 



144 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

any considerable time together, relieve the 
laborer from bearing the whole weight of the 
interest collected upon the money that may 
be used, as the measure of value and medium 
of exchange, whatever the interest may be. 
The bankers and money-lenders of the United 
States, are a much more onerous burden upon 
the people, than would be a large class of 
political aristocracy, sustained ^by revenues 
assessed upon the people. 

The burden of taxes and revenues collect- 
ed from the people, is borne by them several- 
ly, according to their ability, and though the 
collections be large, a political aristocracy re- 
turns the money to the people, for services, 
and property, the products of their labor. 

A political aristocracy, sustained by rents 
or revenues, collected by any just rule, would 
be a light burden upon the people, as compar- 
ed to the bankers and monfey-lenders of the 
United States. A political aristocracy con- 
trol no money but their rents and revenues, 
and this they return, as just stated, to the 
people, in a way that aids and stimulates 
labor ; whereas, the bankers and money-lend- 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 145 

ers, while they collect as largely from the peo- 
ple as a political aristocracy, they control the 
whole money in a way that cannot fail to 
break up business and labor, and continually 
lessen the ability of the people to pay. 

This book started with the declaration that 
the bankers and money-lenders are rapidly 
breaking up the business of the country, are 
taking' the property from the masses of the 
people, and reducing them to a condition of 
hopeless poverty and degradation. It is gen- 
erally admitted that the condition described 
is spreading rapidly over the people. The 
writer charges the unjust control of the money 
as a lending capital, with producing the con- 
dition. Learned writers on political economy 
and statesmen, charge it to over-production, 
extravagant living, and speculating, to the 
neglect of productive industry ; all these 
evils, as they say, resulting from inflated paper 
money. The writer is no advocate of inflated 
money, but denies that inflation, of itself, has 
any tendency to produce the existing condi- 
tion. He charges the political writers and 
statesmen with perpetrating egregious folly, 

10 



146 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

in ascribing the condition to over-production, 
extravagant living, and to the people specula- 
ting, to the neglect of productive labor ; and 
in claiming that these result, as a natural con- 
sequence, from inflated money. The writer is 
willing to admit that this hasty handling of 
the subject, cannot prove to be equal to its 
importance, but he confidently trusts the posi- 
tions he has taken, to the scrutiny of a dis- 
cerning public. 

QUESTIONS ANSWERED. 

Now that the neighbors know that the 
writer is getting out a book against lending 
money for interest, the question is often asked 
him, sometimes with apparent concern : How 
the people will get money } Sometimes the 
question is accompanied with remarks that 
direct the mind to the point of transition from 
the present condition, where it is expected 
the needed money may be borrowed, to the 
proposed order where the money would be 
expected only through business channels in 
exchange for property or services. At other 
times the question is very clearly directed to 
the difficulty that people without capital 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 147 

would experience In going into business, If 
the business of lending money for Interest 
vv^as done away with. 

In reference to the first point, namely, how 
the people would be able to get money neces-- 
sary to pay taxes and carry on business, while 
the country would be In the transition state, 
we might remark, that while it would be very 
Important for a patient suffering from a car- 
buncle, appearing on the head, that the phy- 
sician called should understand the malady, 
and not mistake the swelling for a phrenolo- 
gical development of the neighboring organs 
of the mind, it might not be desirable that he 
should follow the exact order of remedy 
found in the books. It might be very impor- 
tant for the patient, that with a clear and 
comprehensive understanding of that parti- 
cular case, the physician should conform the 
treatment to the case. So it is with the pre- 
sent business malady of the world ; it is very 
important for the patient that the true nature 
of the disease should be understood by those 
who may be called to administer remedies. 
It is of the greatest moment that they should 



148 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

have a clear comprehension of the disease, 
and of the constitution of the patient ; and 
the nature and effects of remedies applied to 
business diseases. But it is not necessary 
that they should find the exact form of remedy 
laid down in a book. 

It is very clear that they will have to bring 
in the aid of the surgeon, and amputate all 
the present authorized and unauthorized 
forms of making gain by making merchandise 
of money ; but the exact kind of stimulant 
that may be needed, if any, to keep up the 
vigor of the patient, during the operation, 
will be best understood and applied by the 
skillful surgeon at the time of the operation. 
It might prove to be right for the government 
when it was breaking up the present out- 
rageous system of money control, to issue 
small sums of its own paper money to the 
people, by loans, at the same rate of interest 
the government pays upon its bonds. 

These loans to be secured by the pledge of 
at least twice the value of unencumbered pro- 
ductive real estate ; and to be paid back in 
three equal parts, at three, six, and nine years. 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 149 

The issues to be limited to such amount as 
would agree with a gold standard of money. 
Thus gold might reasonably be expected to 
take the place of the paper money as it would 
be called in. 

But these things could be judged of best 
at the time. First, let the nature of that 
disease that is to-day filling the world with 
idleness, and its resulting dissipation, vice, 
and pauperism, be well understood, and we 
need not fear but that true remedies can be 
comprehended and applied to the curing of 
any and every phase of evil that the malady 
may develop. In answer to that form of the 
question that has reference to those who, 
without capital, might desire to borrow money 
to go into business, it may be suggested that 
going into business without capital is itself a 
disorder that is not to be encouraged. Per- 
sons that are qualified to carry on a regular 
business, would never undertake to do it on 
money borrowed on promises for the return 
of the money at set times to the lenders. 
They know that to effect a return of the 
money out of any regular business, at set 



150 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

times, would break up the business. If those 
who desire the business of money-lending to 
be perpetuated as a means of enabling people 
without capital to go into business were un- 
derstood, it would be found that it was not 
business but speculation they want. 

They may be in a somewhat similar state 
of mind with poor people surrounded with 
slavery. Though it be the pregnant source of 
their poverty and degradation, they still sup- 
port it, it may be with the secret hope that 
some time they will own slaves. There may 
be in the mind of the advocate of the business 
of lending money for interest, a fond looking 
to a time in the future, a future so full of 
promise to some people, when they will be 
money-lenders. It is surely this, or specula- 
tion, that they see. It is not conceivable that 
people of ordinary intelligence would serious- 
ly entertain the supposition that any of the 
regular productive employments followed 
among men, could be sustained and carried on 
with money borrowed, and to be returned 
periodically to the lenders, with increase. It 
is stated on what appears to be true data, that 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 151 

there are mortgages on real estate in the city 
of New York, to secure the payment of money 
to the amount of five hundred millions of dol- 
lars. It is not probable that the indebtedness 
by mortgages is more than half as much as 
the indebtedness on other securities owed by 
the people of the city of New York, including 
the city debt, and their equal portion of the 
state and county indebtedness. From this it 
would appear that the population of the city 
of New York owe fully fifteen hundred mil- 
lion dollars, exclusive of the share which they 
bear in the indebtedness of the United States 
government. 

There is no reason to suppose that the peo- 
ple of the city of New York owe any more 
than other portions of the people of the United 
States, and hence the conclusion is, that the 
people of the United States owe fully sixty 
billions of dollars, besides the debt that the 
United States government owes. Now this 
vast debt is owed to bankers and money-lend- 
ers, whose control of the indebtedness and 
the accruing interest, operates to turn all 
money out of, and from productive business, 



152 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

only for short, disconnected periods as it may 
be borrowed of them, on promises for its re- 
turn to them with increase. If the interest 
upon this indebtedness amounts to an average 
rate of ten per cent, it amounts annually to 
about forty-eight hundred million dollars. 
Though there is not claimed perfect accuracy 
for the foregoing calculations, it is believed it 
is not too high, either as to the amount of the 
debt, or the rate of interest that is actually 
charged 

The debt has been created through and by 
means of controlling the money that the peo- 
ple are compelled to have in their business, 
and to pay their taxes, as a lending capital. 
It is not possible but that such control of the 
money of business, would result in involving 
the people in irredeemable debt, and in the 
final overthrow of business ; the transfer of 
the property to the money-controllers, and the 
degradation of labor. Nor is it possible that 
the evil will cure itself Now, if the physi- 
cians having the patient in charge, should mis- 
take the carbuncle for a diseased phrenologi- 
cal development ; to be cured, or neutralized^ 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 15S 

by cultivating the less vigorously developed 
organs, the imagination, for instance, to the 
point of believing that there is " nothing 
wrong, but a temporary loss of confidence," 
aided by *' a general extravagance of living, 
and over-production ;" that will work its owii 
remedy through depletion of the patient ; it 
may go hard with the world, now a very sick 
patient. To bring the true remedy for the 
business evils resting upon the world to notice, 
the writer has used every opportunity that 
came before him for over four years, and since 
he became fully satisfied as to the true nature 
of the malady. It was only after every other 
means of having it brought before the people 
failed, that he thought of writino- a book. The 

work has been oerformed in too much of a 

J. 

hurry, but if it brings the matter to the un- 
derstanding of the readers, as well as conver- 
sations appeared to do for the hearers, it will 
be entirely successful in bringing the people 
to a correct understanding of the evil, and the 
remedy, as far as it may get circulation and a 
reading. For I can say in truth, that expres- 
sions of sentiment by many hundreds of peo- 



154 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

pie, after the subject was presented to them, 
showed a unanimity of understanding and 
favor of the common rights of the people in 
money as presented, that never was seen by 
the writer on any other subject. 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 155 



CHAPTER XVI. 



POLITICAL PARTIES. 

Politicians do what they are promoted to 
do ; but they are the slowest of men to do, or 
to acknowledge the necessity of new things. 
This is as it should be. It leaves to the peo- 
ple to project and urge the advances they 
desire to be made. The present political par- 
ties were formed on the slavery question, as 
it existed in the United States before the 
rebellion. The parties presented the oppor- 
tunity to the people to take sides freely on 
the question ; while an overruling Providence 
protected the nation in its passage through 
the " Red Sea." The leaders of the parties 
are able to go no further. If they are not 
directed, they will not fail to make and seek 
dead Images to lead them, and to attract the 
attention of the people. The people must 



IfJt) RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

come forward now, not with offerings for the 
dead images, but with instruction on living 
questions. The Republican party, claiming 
to be a progressive party, ought to be able to 
make a forward movement easily ; and the 
Democratic party would naturally be willing 
to quit, or close the book of its dead past. 
But these rational movements will not be in- 
augurated by the leaders of the parties. The 
people must conie to the front, and instruct 
their politicians, not in general terms in vogue 
at the present time. It is the silliest talk — if 
it is no worse — to say that we must have a 
pure administration, a breaking up of rings, 
honesty in the offices ; and that these things 
must be secured by electing pure, honest, and 
candid men to office. It is folly for the peo- 
ple to indulge in such babbling. All men 
claim to want these things ; and it is the 
cheapest capital in the trade of parties and 
candidates, to claim to be the peculiar cham- 
pions of these virtues ; while the truth is, it is 
possible for but very few of the people to be 
acquainted with the candidates for office, and 
to know whether they are, or are not, honest 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 157 

men. A politician or party that makes a 
charge of corruption and fraud, in general 
terms, and makes or implies promises of their 
own pre-eminent virtues, ought to be set aside 
as a dangerous character. It is a public 
wrong, that ought to receive the reprimand of 
public indignation, for a person to make or 
insinuate, in a general way, charges of fraud 
or corruption against public men. Any per- 
son of ordinary Information, if he is honest, 
will not do it. An honest person is slow, in 
very plain cases of wrong, to charge another 
with intentional dishonesty, much less to 
charge or insinuate it, on suspicion or rumor. 
The crime of slandering men in office is be- 
coming so general, that if it is not stopped, 
honorable men will cease to take office, and 
the people will be compelled to take the ser- 
vices in the public offices, of the dishonesty 
that they have been charging and looking for 
in the offices. The people must come forward 
now ; not to say that times are hard, and that 
they look to their parties to better them, but 
they must say exactly what they want done, 
and how they want it done. The evil of 



158 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

money-lending has existed, to a greater or less 
extent, in all countries, and has degraded the 
many through poverty, and debauched the few- 
through wealth ; and it has assumed propor- 
tions in our country that challenge immediate 
attention. The money that has been received 
in an orderly way, that is, in exchange for 
labor and property, has been retired from bus- 
iness, and is held to lend. The need of it in 
business, and to pay taxes, has compelled peo- 
ple to borrow and to re-borrow it, and to pay, 
and promise to pay it back with interest, until 
a debt has accumulated against the producing 
classes that is overwhelming, and with the in- 
terest constantly augmenting, constitutes a 
sum that cannot be paid, but by the transfer 
of the property to the money-lender. 

IF ARBITRARY DISTINCTIONS IN SOCIETY ARE 
WRONG, 

then are all things wrong that lead to the for- 
mation of such distinctions. In the ages that 
"might assumed to make right," class was an 
inevitable condition among men. The estab- 
lisfiiing by government of noble classes, found- 
ed upon the display of some pre-eminent pub- 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 159 

He virtue, thereby laying a foundation for the 
sentiment that virtue is noble, and that nobles 
were prominent public servants, was a great 
blessing to mankind. The founders of the 
government of the United States denied the 
principle that " might makes right," but claim- 
ed human rights, as an inalienable gift from 
the Creator. This principle they maintained 
through war, and bequeathed it in the Consti- 
tution, to the people of the United States. 
The people of the United States have, there- 
fore, a right, and it is their duty to attack and 
overthrow public wrongs, by the exercise of 
the riehts secured to them in the Constitution, 
when these wrongs have become of general 
concernment. The wrong of money-lending, 
at this time pressing with crushing weight 
upon the industrious millions, has descended, 
like nearly all other wrongs, through long 
ages. Although it has nothing but injustice 
and wrong in it, and wherever it has 
been practiced, it has marked its course 
with oppression, and fostered vice among 
its successful votaries ; yet it has always 
succeeded in making itself acceptable to 



160 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

the learned and influential. In former ages, 
as may be seen in Montesquieu's " Spirit of 
Laws," where he speaks of money-lending 
among the Roman people, when the oppres- 
sion became unendurable, and before all spirit 
was crushed out of the people, they, through 
riot and violence, compelled their government 
to make some show of correcting the evil. 
But it was never attacked upon the true 
ground — that of its utter wrong against the 
rights ot all the people in money. That is, their 
right to meet the thing that societyand the gov- 
ernment declares to be money, in their worldly 
affairs, without any right in the holders to 
make gain on it, while they refuse to exchange 
it for labor and property, and hold it bound 
by notes and promises to pay, to be returned 
to themselves. Common sense teaches that 
if the government makes money, and makes 
it necessary to the people in their worldly 
affairs, to pay business balances and public 
revenues, and the holders of it are allowed to 
make gain, while they refuse to part with it in 
exchange for labor and property, they will 
break up the business of the masses of the 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 161 

people, by means of the money, and take their 
property. But, plain as the principle is, from 
some cause or other, the oppression has been 
exercised through all ages ; while the utter 
injustice of taking interest for money, has 
been declared or referred to in no instance 
that the writer is acquainted with, outside of 
the Word of God. The suffering of the peo- 
ple, their struggles against money-lending, 
called capital, their degradation, the debauch- 
ery of the moneyed few, and from all these 
causes, the final overthrow of governments, 
are freely treated of in the pages of history. 
But it is left for the people of the United 
States, on their own behalf, under the clear 
sanction of the Word of God, and their rights 
under the Constitution, and as free and reason- 
ing men, to deny and overthrow the practice 
of private merchandising in money. 

As this treatise is written by a very plain 
person, for plain people, it is consistent to 
still further illustrate the principles of money 
by a re-statement of them, although the prin- 
ciples have been already stated several times 
under various forms and in various connec- 
li 



162 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

tlons. Money is a necessity in business 
affairs, as a means of expressing and ex- 
changing values. Gold and silver are the 
most appropriate materials to make money 
of; as they are metals that are but little 
subject to rust ; and exist in such limited 
supply as would render the procuring of them 
no more remunerative than other useful em- 
ployments. Gold and silver may be said to 
be the natural foundation for money. 

When society and government make money 
on a gold and silver basis, and make it neces- 
sary to every member of society, by making 
it the only legal sign of value and legal ten- 
der in paying business balances and taxes, 
money becomes to everyone the most impor- 
tant material thing, and to get money becomes 
the most important question affecting the 
natural life. It is not the temporary use of 
money that becomes necessary to the people 
by the custom of society, and by the law of 
the government, but the money itself; for 
when they pay it out, the only way they, have 
of getting it back is to exchange services or 
property for it. The constantly recurring 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 163 

need cannot be supplied by borrowing the 
money on promise to pay it back with increase. 
Money borrowed, to be paid back at times 
and with increase set to suit the gain of the 
lender, would not support the most economi- 
cal government that has ever been known to 
exist among civilized men ; and it will not 
support the individual members of society. 
Let government show an example of carry- 
ing on its affairs with borrowed money and 
cease to collect revenue, before it asks the 
people to do the like. When the holders of 
the money are allowed to make gain by 
charging for the use of it, and hold it bound 
to be returned to themselves — and they have 
extended the operation many times over the 
amount of the money in the country — it 
places the people very nearly in the condition 
that the government would occupy if it 
ceased to collect revenue and depended upon 
borrowing money to carry on its affairs. 

The private revenue or money, that is re- 
quired to support the affairs of the members 
of society, must be derived from their busi- 
ness in exchange for property or services. 



164 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 

But when the holders of the money refuse to 
let it circulate in exchange for labor and pro- 
perty, they cut off the revenue ; and it is 
impossible for the people to stand, as it 
would be for a government to survive with- 
out revenue. The circumstance that govern- 
ment collects revenue from the money-hold- 
ers, and pays it out to the people for prop- 
erty and services, and that the money- 
holders themselves pay out some money for 
property and labor, modifies the condition for 
the people, and enables them to continue the 
struggle for an existence longer than a govern- 
ment could without revenue. Though the 
end is postponed by these things it cannot be 
averted. Through increasing hardships for 
the producing classes, the business of money- 
lendinof will move on towards the final over- 
throw of business and free labor, and the 
absorption of all the property by the money- 
lenders. 

The proposition by the Greenback party, 
for the government to offer to the money- 
lenders government bonds bearing interest at 
the rate of 3.65 per cent, per annum, and to 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 165 

return the money again on the bonds at the 
option of the holder, would be the boldest 
outrage upon the rights of the producing 
classes that could be devised. The mere 
matter of having the money where it would 
be kept safely in times of depressed business 
and shrinking prices, and returnable at the 
will of the holder, would cause all the money 
to disappear from circulation in a very short 
time. But to add to the inducement a rate 
of gain that is greater, no doubt than the 
average net profits of business, what possible 
inducement would remain to exchange money 
for labor or property ? That such a propo- 
sition finds advocates shows the bewildered 
condition of the people on the subject ; and 
shows the imperative necessity of reverting 
to first principles, and establishing the true 
bearings of the question. As already said, 
this work the people must do. Politicians and 
■ he learned men of the world have their faces 
turned from it — a sure sign that the people 
and their interests have ceased to furnish im- 
pulses in the control of affairs. Let the prin- 
ciple be henceforth insisted upon, tliat money 



166 RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY, 

shall be established on a gold and silver basis, 
and that the whole people have a right, and 
shall have the privilege, to meet money in 
business affairs, without any possible gain 
being made out of it by dealing in promises 
to pay money, excepting upon the bonds oi 
the United States. 

The proposition suggests a radical change 
— but it will be a just and healthy change, 
that will disturb no private or public right. 
It will stop the business of money-lending tor 
gain ; but no person can have a right to make 
gain by setting a value on money when the 
people choose to prevent it ; for the Consti- 
tution gives to Congress the right "to coin 
money and to regulate the value thereof and 
of foreign coin." It would prevent States 
from borrowing money, and from authorizing 
counties, cities, townships, and school-districts 
to borrow on their bonds, or bills of credit. 
But, under the Constitution, the States have 
no right to emit bills of credit ; and of course 
they cannot authorize counties, cities, town- 
ships, or school-districts to issue them. But 
they will suffer no inconvenience, for they can 



RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE IN MONEY. 167 

accomplish all desirable measures through 
taxation, and will not thereby disturb the 
rights of the productive business of the 
country in the money. 



ERRATA 



Page 141, first line, read " sixty-two " instead of 
" seventy." 

Page 152, sixth line, read "sixty" instead of "forty- 
eight." 



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